


Damnation, Transcendent

by anax imperator (anax)



Series: Objective Uncertainty, Held Fast [2]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: F/M, M/M, much less worksafe than the previous one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-11
Packaged: 2018-03-07 04:01:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3160421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anax/pseuds/anax%20imperator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When he'd invited Nero to come back to Devil May Cry with him, Dante had known there would be difficulties.  He just hadn't known how terrible they would truly be.</p><p>The last one was fairly worksafe.  This one is not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damnation, Transcendent

Sharing a place with Nero was weird at first. Dante had lived alone for more years than he could remember, and he was used to the place being quiet at least a few hours a day. Nero was quiet, but in the way of a living person and not in the way of an absence of people. He moved around, he breathed, he made sounds when he put up his feet or took a shower. It wasn't irritating or anything, just really strange.

There was a problem, though. When Nero was in the same room or nearby, Dante got that sense of there being a strong devil on the premises. It nagged at him, urged him to violence, and more.

Dante tried to get the kid to sleep in the bedroom above the shop, figuring that the best thing for everyone would be to put a locked door between himself and Nero while Nero was helplessly asleep. Nero did it the first evening after he came home with the older hunter, and it worked out well, but then he refused to do it again. The reason he gave was stupid - that he felt like he was kicking Dante out of his own bed - but Dante couldn't argue effectively without explaining why it was important, and he got the feeling that Nero wasn't ready to hear that.

So be it. This was an expected complication, and not a dealbreaker. Dante had self-control, and practice from when Trish had been around more. He could crush down the violent fantasies.

Nero was self-consciously circumspect for the first three days, picking up the place as though he needed to pay his way in some manner, which Dante _did_ appreciate even if he didn't say so in as many words. The kid had almost zero money of his own, so he ate what Dante provided and didn't complain, about that anyway.

The fourth evening in, he did voice a complaint, about something different. "I'm so bored."

Dante was paging through a magazine at the time, and thinking it would resolve the problem he flipped it across the room to Nero and pulled out a different one.

But Nero just threw it down. "Is this really what you do all day? Read magazines and flirt with Trish?"

Trish hadn't been in that day at all, so Dante didn't know where that had come from. "Occasionally I shoot some pool," he said.

Nero didn't know how to play pool; they'd established that two days ago. The kid had accidentally broken one of the cues in the process. Dante hardly cared, but Nero had felt bad and hadn't touched the pool table since.

"What about the demons?" said Nero.

"What about them?"

Nero was flustered for a moment, but then said, "Don't you go out hunting them?"

Dante gestured toward the phone. "I do when that rings and it's someone with a devil problem."

This clearly wasn't the way Nero had expected the conversation to go; the kid's expression cycled through several different emotions before settling on _annoyed._ "Maybe I _should_ go look for a job on the docks," he muttered.

"Your call, kid." Then, because Nero was starting to look very dire for no good reason, Dante said, "Why don't you grab your sword, we'll go outside."

"I don't get how you can just _sit_ here, while there are demons _out there!"_ Nero stabbed a finger toward the door.

"If there's a problem, someone will get in touch with me," said Dante. "I like it when nobody calls. It means nobody died to demon attack today."

That took the wind out of Nero's sails, and some of the anger had faded from his tone when he said, "I hadn't thought of it that way."

Dante stood up and lifted Rebellion down off the wall. "Let's go outside for a few."

This met with no further argument, although Nero seemed kind of sullen as he followed Dante out the door. The street was deserted, as it usually was, and it was late enough that the businesses nearby were already closed. There would likely be no onlookers, but Dante wasn't terribly concerned about that. It wasn't like Devil May Cry didn't already have a reputation for being kind of a strange establishment and probably somehow related to the mob.

However, Nero didn't seem to share his confidence. "You sure this is okay?" he asked. He was sliding his right hand into his coat as he said it.

Dante did understand the thing about Nero's hand, but it seemed really sad that the kid felt so negatively about it. "Of course." Dante swiped his sword through the air twice and then sighted it at Nero. This was going to feed his violent desires, but Nero certainly needed it. "C'mon, kid. Give it to me."

For a moment it looked like Nero was going to decline, but then the kid leapt toward him and brought his sword down onto Rebellion like he was trying to hammer into the center of the earth, and the engine on the thing screamed, and Dante figured he had everything solved. He dueled Nero for probably half an hour, until the kid's strikes were no longer powered mainly by rage and he looked to be thinking clearly again.

Dante swept Nero's sword to one side and held it there with Rebellion's notched tip, and said, "Feel better?"

The only answer he got was a glowing punch to the face that knocked him backward. He turned it into a flip and landed on his feet, but had to immediately defend himself again when Nero stabbed brutally at his neck. "I suppose that means no," he said.

"Don't try to manipulate me!" said Nero, and Dante had no idea what that meant.

Nevertheless, Nero's fury was almost gone and Dante could plainly see it, and with it went a lot of Nero's strength. He'd been just rusting on that island, and it was obvious that he was tiring fast but he didn't seem to be willing to give up. Dante eventually took pity on him, and disarmed him and tripped him in the same motion to force him to stop.

Hitting the ground face-first probably did nothing for Nero's attitude, but the kid didn't say anything about it when he picked himself up. In fact, he agreed with Dante's assessment by saying, "I'm weak."

"You're out of practice," said Dante. He looked away until the kid was standing again and no longer on his knees.

Nero crossed the street to retrieve his sword, and then he leveled a strange look at Dante. There was anger there, and also something else Dante couldn't read at all. "You're still playing with me."

"Can you blame me?" said Dante. "You're such a fun toy."

They went back into Devil May Cry and Dante put away his weapon. Nero had scraped his hand going down and there was a smear of blood on his palm. The cut had already closed but Dante could smell the blood until the kid went to wash his hands. It was a warm smell, Nero's blood, like a human's but with a touch of devil. Dante's own blood had a similar scent, and so had his brother's, but the smell of Nero's blood was richer, rounder, more human, with less of that sour otherworldly tang.

Not for the first time, Dante wondered where this kid had come from. Since there were no answers to that question, he sat at his desk and tilted back the chair, and thought about having a nap.

Nero came out of the bathroom with washed hands, and went about cleaning down his sword. Dante watched this with some interest; his own devil arms never required any maintenance beyond wiping the blood from them and sometimes not even that much, but Nero's weapon was a complex piece of conventional machinery. He also - and Dante noticed this for the first time - refused to touch the thing with his right hand. He did everything with just his left hand, keeping his right one in his lap.

"You left-handed, kid?" asked Dante, because he'd known that Nero wielded his weapons left-handed but now he thought there might be more to that than he'd first assumed.

Nero's response seemed to confirm that. "I am now."

This kid was downright depressing. Somehow, Dante needed to get him over this hang-up of his. Damned if he knew how, though.

That turned out to be a problem for another day, because the phone chose that moment to ring and the person calling was Trish. She was on a job and the devils were holed up in a vacant factory in a somewhat open area, and she wanted Dante's help in corralling them before she went in so that none would escape. "How much is my cut going to be?" Dante asked. Trish laughed, and so did he, because they both knew he would do it even if the cut were nothing.

"Who was that?" asked Nero when Dante hung up. He was expectant, from having heard Dante's end of the conversation.

"Trish. You coming?"

The kid jumped to his feet like he'd just been told summer vacation had been rescheduled. "You bet."

Awesome. "You're driving," Dante told him.

The factory was located on the south side of town, about thirty minutes away, and Nero was quiet so Dante thought he would be able to catch a quick nap anyway. It was not to be; Nero had worked up a bit of a sweat earlier during that spar, and the scent of him filled the car. Dante cracked his window to dilute it, but the kid smelled so good he couldn't bring himself to roll his window all the way down.

Despite his best efforts, he was hard by the time Nero parked the car, on the fringe of the parking lot of a neighboring warehouse. He was able to conceal it by rearranging his trousers when he got out of the car, and Nero either didn't notice or pretended not to notice.

Dante found Trish easily and she filled them in: their job (or, rather, Dante's job and Nero's voluntary assist) was to keep the demons from running out the other doors when Trish went in through the loading dock. They might not try to run, but Trish said they were cowards who preyed only on the poor and homeless and so they probably would. The area around the factory was very open, paved and lit by the sallow puddles of sodium lamps. The nearest building was probably eight hundred yards away, separated from this factory by a parking lot and a fence topped with razor wire, which would not even slow the demons down if they got that far.

Even though they weren't close enough for Dante to directly detect the demons, he could smell the rot of their nest whenever the breeze turned. They'd been there a while.

He sent Nero around to the employee entrance and went into the front office himself. Trish crashed through the loading dock about a minute and a half later and a ruckus began inside the factory. Dante parked himself at the door that linked the front office to the production floor.

That was all he really had to do; one devil came racing toward him in an effort to escape Trish and skidded to a halt when it saw him. "Dante!" it squealed, and it immediately skedaddled back the way it had come, apparently preferring to take its chances with Trish. Dante put a bullet into the back of its head before it got far, then walked over to check his handiwork as it lay in a bleeding mess on the floor.

The demon flopped like a brained fish, its expression one of disbelief, blood and tissue leaking out the front of its destroyed forehead. Weak little thing. Made a nice portrait on the floor, though.

When the sounds of combat diminished Dante went out onto the production floor, which was mostly stripped of machinery and which reeked of decay. Nero was over by one of the walls with his back to the rest of the space. He didn't turn when Dante called his name.

Weird. Dante met Trish halfway across the factory. "What's with the kid?" he whispered. In answer she just cocked her head toward the corner of the factory nearest the employee entrance, where Nero would have come in. Without even getting close, Dante could tell that was where the devils had caged their victims.

"Oh." Had Dante known that, he would have sent Nero in through the front office instead. It wasn't nice to come across that kind of thing unexpectedly.

"Give him a minute," said Trish quietly.

Good idea. Much more loudly, Dante said, "Glad I made things so easy for you. I reckon that raises my cut."

"Hah, hah," said Trish, at the same volume. "Nero was more help than you were. Maybe I should give your money to him."

Dante argued and behaved very put-upon, but he was amused and the money didn't matter in the end. Eventually Nero pulled himself together and came over to join them, and by that point Dante had all but yielded any cut of the payment at all.

"Hey," said the kid, irritation in his tone. "We came all the way down here. We're going to get paid for our time."

He was very insistent and not at all willing to compromise on it, so Trish handed over some cash and Dante and Nero left.

"Good job, kid," Dante told him in the car. The air was clearer now, the smell of Nero's sweat less intense.

"Whatever," said Nero at first, but after a few minutes of fuming he added, "It's obvious you've never worked a regular job in your life. I don't know about you, but _I_ don't work for free."

That wasn't true at all and Dante knew it, but he wasn't _opposed_ to getting paid so he decided to just have another nap on the way home. He could forget about the rest of it, forget about that demon he'd slain, and about the demon behind the wheel right now.

That nap, too, was not in the cards. After another few minutes, Nero said, "Did you know what would be there?"

"No, but it doesn't surprise me." Dante didn't bother opening his eyes.

"Why do they do it?"

There were several possible answers to that question, some more true than others. Dante mentally flipped through them, wondering how much honesty Nero was prepared to hear. "I've heard a bunch of different reasons from different devils," he said, opting for a truth that wouldn't touch on his own first-hand knowledge. "It always comes down to a bone-deep desire to dominate. No better way to express domination over someone than killing them."

"It's disgusting," said Nero, very quietly but without any hint that he was rejecting the idea.

"It's power. The power of life and death." Yes, this seemed like something Nero was prepared to hear. "Full-blooded devils don't naturally have morality the way you and I do. We have a connection with humans and a degree of humanity. They don't. They have only a lust for power, and because they lack that humanity they're willing to exploit any power they find."

The light of Nero's right hand moved, as he clenched his fist. "I have humanity," he said, and it sounded like he was trying to convince himself of this.

"Yes," said Dante. "You do."

"I'm not like those things back there."

This was an unexpected direction for this conversation to take, so Dante took his time, working out how he wanted to respond to that. "You're a devil. So am I. But we're not purely devil, with nothing else inside. We're also humans, in a way. That does make us different."

Some things didn't change, though, like the desire to _conquer_ and to _rule_ and to _force submission._ Nero was a strong devil, and would put up a good fight.

_No._

Nero said nothing more, and Dante spent the rest of the trip replaying in his mind the moment when he'd gunned down that fleeing demon at the factory, and the helpless twitching of the thing as it had died. It distracted him, gave his mind an acceptable bone to gnaw.

When they arrived home Nero called dibs on the shower and Dante let him have it; the kid seemed pretty broken up about the demons' victims, and Dante understood the need to cleanse after seeing something like that up-close and personal. To resolve his own problems, he went upstairs to his bedroom and jacked off, forcing himself not to think about Nero as he did it.

Once that was over, he came back downstairs to make sure Nero was okay before going to bed.

The kid had settled on the couch by this point but he wasn't asleep yet; he rolled over to put his back to the room when Dante came down the stairs.

"If Trish calls again, let me know," Dante told him, and Nero made an assenting kind of sound but didn't really reply. Good enough. Dante locked the front doors, and went back upstairs to sleep.

* * *

Nero was better the next day, more like himself. He tried to give Dante the money that Trish had handed over, but Dante told him to keep it. The kid didn't refuse, but he did insist on buying lunch and Dante wasn't going to turn that down.

They went to the diner down the street and Dante wanted only a strawberry sundae, but Nero ordered him a sandwich as well and stared accusingly at him until he ate it. Dante complied. Why not? He got a sundae at the end of it and that was all that mattered.

Cindy looked shocked that Dante was eating real food for a change. "I can't say no to my girlfriend here," Dante told her, and Nero's outrage following that statement was priceless.

Outside the diner, Nero said hotly, "Why did you say that?"

"No reason."

"I'm not your girlfriend. And I can't make you do anything you don't want to do!"

Interesting, the order of those objections. "Do you _want_ to be my girlfriend?" asked Dante, genuinely curious.

Nero's fury at that suggestion was perhaps predictable, but it manifested differently from how Dante would have expected. He might have expected to have to duck a punch, but instead Nero just dissolved into silent fuming. They didn't speak as they walked home, and as soon as they got there Nero jumped into his car and took off without mentioning where he was going.

That was fine with Dante. He could do with the kid being out of the building for a while.

Dante was at the pool table when Patty dropped by and they shot a couple of games together. She asked where Nero was, and Dante had to admit that he didn't know. "I made him mad," Dante said, "so he left to go cool off or something."

"You shouldn't do that," Patty told him. Then, with the wisdom of a person who had met Nero all of once for about ten minutes, she added, "He seems really tightly-wound."

Surveying the table, Dante idly chalked his cue and tried to decide how he wanted to play this. They had some money on this game; did he want to win it or lose? "That's what makes him fun," he said. He decided to win so he could get some pocket change, and bent down to line up a shot.

Nero walked in a few minutes later, and he acted like nothing had happened at all, although once he saw that there was a visitor he turned down his right sleeve and put on a glove. Patty invited Nero to play in the next game, and the kid tried to refuse but Patty charmed him into it. Nero was more careful with the cue stick this time, but it became quickly apparent that he still didn't understand the game.

"Wow," said Patty, when Nero sank two balls with his third stroke and in the process arranged a fourth that would sink two more. "You're really good at this!"

Dante would disagree, but he couldn't exactly explain why in front of Patty. He just watched, silently, as Nero sank every ball in the correct order in quick succession. Patty went silent, too, once it became obvious that she was never going to be able to take a shot herself.

"He's way better at this than you are, Dante," said Patty after Nero dropped the 8-ball at the end.

That made Nero glance up at Dante questioningly, and Dante shook his head slightly to keep him quiet.

"I guess I just have natural talent," said Nero.

To change the subject, Dante said, "This means Nero is buying dinner."

"Hah, hah," was Nero's opinion of this, but when the time rolled around he did, in fact, pay for dinner.

Patty left before the pizza arrived, and Dante took that opportunity to set Nero straight. "She'll never shoot another game of pool with you, you know," he said.

"It's a stupid game," said Nero, but then he gave Dante a sideways look. "That's why you were losing."

No response to that was warranted. Instead, Dante said, "You're not going to make yourself popular by destroying her at the pool table."

"It's a stupid game, anyway," said Nero again.

"For us, maybe."

Then Dante watched Nero for a little while, sticking his nose into a magazine so he could pretend that he wasn't. The kid finally took that glove back off, ate a slice of pizza, went over to Dante's jukebox and put on some slow jazz, and then racked up at the pool table and proceeded to again sink every ball in one stroke apiece or less. Dante started to expect, any minute now, a proclamation of boredom like the evening before.

Instead, Nero eventually said, "What'd you mean, yesterday in the car. When you were talking about power."

Dante had thought that had been fairly self-explanatory. "Devils crave power," he said. "They'll take it wherever they can find it."

"There's no _power_ in killing defenseless people," said Nero. "So why do it?"

Dante dropped the magazine onto his desk. "Because you're wrong. There _is_ power in it. Life and death. I think I said that yesterday. If you put a gun to a human's head, you can decide to kill them or to let them go, and that's power. The person you're threatening has no say in it." Then, to test if Nero was paying attention, he added, "The same principle applies if you pull your gun on a devil, too."

"If it's a strong demon," said the kid slowly, working it out, "that means there's more power in killing it."

"Or threatening to kill it," said Dante. "Or subduing it." Bringing it to its knees, making it beg ... Dante squelched that thought.

"But you didn't want to kill those demons back on Fortuna." Nero glanced at Dante. "Even though you're a demon yourself."

This was an interesting line of questioning. Dante wondered where the kid was going with it. "I'm not a full-blooded devil. I can make decisions. They were weak and harmless, and just needed to go home." Then, because it was true, he added, "They also groveled pretty nicely. You weren't there for that part."

Nero put the balls back on the table and racked them again. "I can imagine."

Perhaps he could. Dante watched Nero place the cue ball and lean down to break. The bright blue-white glow of the kid's transformed hand rested on the baize, the pool cue guided between shimmering fingers; he even shot pool left-handed.

"Can you feel that same ... hunger?" asked Nero. He actually turned his back to Dante as he said it. "For power?"

How much honesty was Nero prepared to hear? Dante still didn't know, but he wasn't going to lie and he had already admitted to it back on Fortuna. "Yes," he said. "What's biting you, kid? What's this about?"

Nero started sinking the balls again, one right after the other like it was nothing. He said, "I don't know. Those demons from yesterday, I guess?"

"You've seen demon leftovers before."

"Not like that." Nero chalked his cue, then looked down at his glowing hand. "I want to believe I'm not like them. But ... if I was born a demon like you say ... how different can I be?"

Ahhh. An existential crisis. Now Dante was in familiar territory. "Believe me, kid, if you were exactly like other devils, you wouldn't be standing here right now worrying about it. You'd be somewhere out there acting on whatever impulse moved you. If you can ask yourself the question, it's already been answered."

"I suppose." Nero didn't look convinced, though. "Sometimes, I feel ..." Nero paused, then leaned down to line up a shot and volunteered nothing further.

There was more to that, obviously, and Dante wondered if he should press for it. He decided it was unnecessary. "I know how it feels," he told Nero. He felt it right now, looking at the kid.

The nine-ball dropped into the side pocket, and Nero moved around the table. Dante couldn't smell him at the moment, which was good, because just watching him prowl into a new position to line up his next shot was enough. Nero would fight back, hard, but he lacked the strength to successfully resist. He'd give Dante a run for his money, but he'd submit in the end.

Dante swiped the last piece of pizza out of the box and picked his magazine back up with his other hand, and resumed reading. Nero had nothing more to say for a while, and when he did it was only to ask if there was pizza left.

"Nope." Dante banged his heel against the desk to knock the phone receiver into his hand. "Let's order more."

* * *

The next evening he coaxed Nero outside for another duel. Not because the kid was particularly cranky, but because he was just so out of practice it was embarrassing. He wore out quickly, less than twenty minutes in, and that was just shameful.

"Look on the bright side," said Dante, while Nero caught his breath. "In bed, twenty minutes would be almost respectable."

The glare that earned him was poisonous. Dante flipped the kid a grin.

"I hate you," said Nero, but it was kind of gasped out between pants for air and didn't hold much weight. He aimed his sword at Dante; the tip trembled. "I am going to drive you into the _wall."_

"Don't make promises you can't keep." Dante sat on the steps outside Devil May Cry, and patted the step next to him.

Nero scowled, but accepted the invitation and sat down beside the older hunter. The kid was overheated again, and the scent of him was very interesting. It was all Dante could do to not lean closer and bury his nose in the kid's hair, to not put his hand around the kid's throat.

"You keep holding back when we fight," Dante said. He was becoming aroused, but he kept it out of his voice. "Why?"

"I don't," said Nero, with some fresh anger.

"You do." Dante knocked the back of his left hand against the back of Nero's right; the glove had come back today.

Nero looked away, and offered no answer.

"You're a devil, kid," said Dante.

"Not everyone has to know that."

"Yesterday? Patty wouldn't have cared. You didn't have to keep it hidden from her."

Nero abruptly stood up, paced around a few steps like he was trying to say or decide something, and then passed Dante to enter the building. Less than a minute later he came back out, and he'd traded his sword for his car keys.

"Where you going, kid?" asked Dante.

"Don't know," said Nero. "Away from you."

"Sure. Run away again."

"I'm not running away." But Nero didn't stop, and when he started his car Dante stood up and went back into Devil May Cry.

Even without the interpersonal violence he'd imagined, Dante was incredibly hard. This was starting to get ridiculous. He had self-control, and he could prevent himself from _doing_ anything to the kid, but he couldn't control how damned much the way Nero moved and smelled kept putting ideas into his head. Aggravated, Dante poured himself a glass of whiskey, and considered his options. He didn't have many so it didn't take long, and he picked up the phone.

It was answered after the first ring. "Yo," said Lady, and she sounded distracted.

"Yo, yourself," said Dante. "You busy?"

"Depends on what you've got, and whether it comes with cash."

Dante laughed. "I would never insult you by offering you payment for your delightful company."

"Oh," said Lady, and her tone changed completely. _"That_ kind of busy. Hmmm." A pause while she thought. "I might be able to free up my calendar. When did you have in mind?"

"Your earliest convenience."

She laughed. "That desperate, are you?"

Dante dropped his voice to the low rumble he knew she liked. "I've been thinking about you all day," he lied. "Want to know what I'd like to do to you?"

"Yes, I believe I do."

This was more like it; Dante settled back in his chair and cradled the receiver close. "Are you sitting down?"

"On the couch."

"What are you wearing?"

"Shorts and a skirt."

"Hmmm." Dante closed his eyes, envisioning it. "I'd like to kneel down in front of you, kiss the inside of one knee, and lick my way up your thigh. I'd have to get those shorts off of you. But not all the way. Just down to your ankles. Maybe give them a twist to hold them there."

Lady laughed, but it was a warm laugh. "Maybe not," she said. "Maybe I'd like to put my legs around your shoulders."

"I'd love that." He paused, and gave himself a brief rub through his pants. "I'd lick my way up your thigh, and bury my nose between your legs. You always smell so good, Lady." So _human,_ her scent. "I'd start licking you through your panties. Do you think I could get you to come that way?"

"I think you need to stop talking about it and come over here and find out."

Dante grabbed his keys out of the desk drawer. "Be there in ten." He took his guns but left his sword behind, and went around the building to get his motorcycle.

Nero's car turned the corner as he was pulling out, and Dante offered a two-fingered wave as he went by.

* * *

Lady could be rough when she was in the mood. She pulled Dante's hair as he went down on her, using the painful grip to hold him where she wanted him, then did it some more as they fucked on the couch. She gentled somewhat after he'd come once and she twice, but when they moved it to her bedroom she put a hand on his throat, to hold him down while she rode him. She really couldn't hurt him but Dante always got the impression that she thought she could, and that was kind of thrilling, that this soft human believed she could threaten him.

She finished before he did, so she let him roll them over and keep driving into her to seek his own climax. He kissed her shoulder and up the side of her throat, her body warm and tight around his cock and her arms warm and tight around his shoulders. "You're so beautiful," he whispered, almost out of his mind.

After he came she ran her fingers up and down his back, almost as if petting him while he caught his breath. "What did you kill today?" she asked him.

"Nothing today," murmured Dante. He heaved himself up, pulled out of her, and dropped onto his side next to her so he could nuzzle her hair.

"What got you so worked up?"

"I don't know. Just thinking about you." The lie was an easy one, because it was often true.

Lady smelled, tasted, _felt_ like a human being, those fragile things with such powerful souls. When snuggled close to one this way, Dante knew why other devils craved human blood. This one understood what kind of creature she'd brought to her bed, but Dante wondered sometimes if she understood how easy it would be for him to break her head right off her shoulders, and how little reason he actually had to refrain.

"Going to stay the night?" Lady asked.

"If you want me to."

"Up to you."

Dante thought about it, and then said, "Nah. You'd make me breakfast."

"Oh yes, horrors."

"Then I'd have to eat it," said Dante, and he raised himself up on his elbow to look her in the face. "And then you'd say I owed you twenty bucks for it."

Lady chuckled. "Is this your way of saying you don't like my cooking?"

He leaned down to kiss her, and said, "If you want me to stay, I'll stay."

"No. Get out of here. I got what I wanted from you."

"Okay." He got up, cleaned himself off and threw the condom away, and got dressed.

"Next time you go to take out something big and nasty," said Lady as he was about to leave, "call me."

"I'll think about it." Dante sat down on the edge of the bed to kiss her, and he didn't intend it to be passionate but it kind of deepened anyway, and he had to pull himself away. He'd come twice in the past couple of hours, and he doubted he could carry through on any promise of more right now. He whispered against Lady's lips, "You are amazing."

She laughed. "I know."

He felt considerably better now, as he walked out of the building. It had rained, and was still drizzling a little, and although riding a damp motorcycle wasn't the most pleasant thing in the world, the moisture on his face felt wonderful. All of those half-formed fantasies about Nero were completely gone.

Nero himself, however, was very much at home and waiting up for him, and the kid looked nearly overcome by irritation. "Where have you been?"

"Out." No business of Nero's really. Dante took off his guns and then his coat, pulled an oiled rag out from behind the bar, and began to wipe the drizzle from the red leather.

"Why didn't you wait for me? I would have come along!"

_What?_ Dante paused, confused as to why Nero thought he'd want a tag-a-long on a hookup, and only after a couple of seconds did he understand. Then he laughed. "It wasn't a job, kid."

"Then where did you go?"

"Out," said Dante again.

This time Nero accepted the answer, although he visibly didn't like it. Dante finished with his coat and hung it up, investigated a pizza box to see if there were any leftovers in it (there weren't), and then went upstairs to go to bed.

He was woken the next morning by the sense that a strong devil was nearby, and an instant after he opened his eyes Nero was banging on the bedroom door. "Go away," he yelled. It wasn't even noon yet.

"Get up!" Nero yelled back through the door. "Your agent's here!"

Shit. Dante was inclined to just ignore all of it, but there was no way he could sleep with this noise, or with Nero standing outside the door. He dragged himself out of bed, gave the door a sharp rap, and said, "Fine, now shut the fuck up." Then he thought about going back to bed anyway, but fuck, Nero would just come bang on the door again, so he got dressed and went downstairs.

Morrison was there, along with a man and a woman Dante didn't recognize. Middle-aged, well-dressed, standing next to the desk, pensive expressions as they watched him come down the stairs. These were people with problems. Nero was seated on one of the barstools, one glove on as usual.

Irritated, Dante said, "If there isn't literally a hell gate opening in downtown at this very moment, I'm going back to bed."

A startled look crossed the man's face, and he began to say something but Morrison interrupted.

"Dante," said Morrison. "This is Mr. and Mrs. Olivier. They're having a problem with one of their children."

"I'm not a child psychologist." Dante crossed the room to the fridge to get a beer.

"Please," said the woman. "Our son is possessed. We don't know where else to go."

"I'm not an exorcist, either," said Dante, but his interest _was_ piqued now. "Kids are weird. It's ordinary kid weirdness."

"It isn't," said the wife. "You probably won't even believe us if we told you."

To that, Nero snorted, and said, "Try us."

The two of them then laid out a story that did, indeed, sound like something paranormal. A personality change, strange sounds at night that disappeared when investigated, weird odors in the house and drafts where there should have been no drafts. Dante didn't buy possession - he'd never seen real possession, although he'd seen things that might resemble it - but if their description was true something was definitely going on.

The husband kept glancing toward the demon head Dante had impaled on the wall beside the bar, and Dante was tempted to ask if he wanted to touch it just to see what he would say.

"Okay," said Dante in the end. "Give me the address."

They did, and they and Morrison left, and Dante had another beer and strapped on his gun holsters. Nero scowled at him, until Dante just looked the kid in the eye and said, "What?"

"You're broke," said Nero. "Why did they have to talk you into taking this job?"

"Because I don't take just anything that walks through the door," said Dante.

"They have a _demon_ in their house!"

"They _think_ they have a demon in their house. People are wrong about that sometimes." Dante put on his coat and slid his guns under it. "In fact, they're usually wrong about that. People in this town have all kinds of ideas about demons that have no bearing on reality."

This seemed to be a brand-new concept to Nero, and it shut him down into confused silence. Dante finished his second beer and tossed both cans into the trash can.

"You coming to breakfast, kid?"

"... sure," said Nero.

They walked to the diner, and Dante again complied with Nero pushing him to eat something off the menu that wasn't ice cream. "I don't know how you live on just beer and junk food," Nero said.

"Maybe if you tried it, you'd find out."

"No thanks."

The evening with Lady had taken a lot of the edge off, but as they sat together in the diner that sense of _devil, nearby_ crept over Dante's nerves. Nero was digging into a hamburger like there was no tomorrow, and the sheer enthusiasm with which he attacked his food would not have been out of place on any devil fresh out of hell.

He had that glove on, though, and was handling the burger with only his left hand.

Dante said, "Hey, Nero. Why don't you take your glove off?"

The kid stopped and gave him a glare. "Because we're in public," said Nero in a low undertone.

"Nobody here will care."

_"I_ would care."

Dante raised a hand and beckoned to the waitress. "Cindy," he said when she had skated over. "What if I told you my friend here is a devil?"

Nero choked on his food, and he dropped his burger so he could slap his hand over his mouth and cough. The glare he gave Dante was probably the most violent yet.

"I'd say he's an awfully cute one," said Cindy with a giggle.

After a couple of coughs, Nero said, "And what if I told you that _Dante_ is a devil?"

Again she giggled. "Yeah, a handsome devil."

Dante raised his hands and grinned at Nero. He knew he was being manipulative here, but he had to get that glove off the kid somehow. "Nobody is going to care, I promise."

Nero coughed a few more times, but Dante could see the wheels turning. "Okay, fine," said the kid, and he picked the glove off his hand.

Of course, the moment Cindy saw his blue fingers, her hand flew to her mouth and her eyes widened, staring. "Holy ...," she said. "You weren't kidding!"

The look Nero shot Dante as he stuffed his hand into his coat was one of absolute betrayal. There was a moment of spluttering rage, and then the kid said, "You _asshole!"_

"You weren't kidding," Cindy was saying. "I thought you were kidding!"

Dante half-stood and reached across the table to grab Nero by the forearm, and forced the kid to take his hand out of his coat. Nero fought him the entire way, but without actively invoking the demonic power in that arm - something Dante was willing to bet he wouldn't do - he was unable to stop Dante from doing as he liked.

"I wasn't kidding," said Dante, and silverware rattled as he slammed Nero's hand down on the tabletop.

Cindy stared at the glowing, clawed fingers now splayed on the table, and Nero glared furiously out the window and wouldn't look at anyone. "I thought you were kidding," she said again, but her tone was less shocked now. She swallowed, and then said, "Well ... can I get you some more coffee?"

"Yes, please," said Dante, and Cindy went off to do that.

"You're a prick," said Nero, his teeth clenched, but when Dante released his hand he only curled it into his lap instead of hiding it inside his coat or putting his glove back on.

"She doesn't care, Nero. She was just surprised."

Cindy returned with a pot of coffee and refilled Dante's cup, and while she gave Nero a peculiar look she said nothing more about it. After she left again, Nero finally pried his gaze away from the window and aimed it hatefully at Dante.

"You had no right to do that," said the kid.

"Hey," said Dante, perhaps more sharply than he'd intended. "You had those folks in Fortuna literally praying to my name. Cindy? Is not going to pray to you. In fact, she doesn't even care."

Nero's eyes darted to one side, where Dante could hear Cindy chatting to another table of customers. "I didn't mean to do that," said the kid, and some of the malevolence was gone from his tone.

Dante hadn't intended that to be another bit of manipulation - he'd just let his annoyance come out for a moment - but he realized that it was and he decided he didn't mind using it. "I guarantee you, nobody is going to interfere with your ability to walk around town because of this. For fuck's sake, they have a statue of Sparda in the park. No lie."

After another thirty seconds of glaring, Nero picked up his burger and resumed eating, more slowly now. He kept his right hand in his lap, even when Cindy came around again to check on them and said nothing whatsoever about it, and put his glove back on before they left the diner.

* * *

The address the Oliviers had given was in a better part of town, but when Dante and Nero arrived it turned out to be an ordinary-looking, box-shaped duplex. The Oliviers were on the left, but Dante gave the right-hand home a brief examination from the yard, wondering if the demon activity wasn't actually over there and just coming through the walls.

Mrs. Olivier answered the door, and her eyes widened in alarm when Dante's coat shifted and the grip of one of his guns became visible. "You're not going to _kill_ anyone, are you?" she asked.

"You expected me to make friends with your devil?" asked Dante. "Maybe ask it over for tea?"

That didn't reassure Mrs. Olivier, if her expression was any indication.

Nero went upstairs and Dante went downstairs to the basement, just to get a feel for the place. As with most homes belonging to ordinary people, the rooms and hallways weren't sized or furnished with fighting in mind, and it was going to be cramped if things came down to that. There were no signs of demons in the basement, and none on the first floor; when Nero came downstairs he reported nothing in the bedrooms either.

"Is there an attic?" Dante asked Mrs. Olivier.

There was. She showed them the ladder in the upstairs hallway, then stayed at the bottom of it as Dante and Nero poked around the space up there. Only a portion of the attic had plywood tacked down to support cardboard boxes of extra possessions; the remainder was bare ceiling joists and strips of pink insulation. The attic air was hot, and smelled of aging wood.

"There's nothing up here," said Nero.

"You're right," said Dante, as he walked across the joists to the wall that the attic shared with the attic next door. There he paused to listen for anything out of place, or any sense that a devil was nearby, but he could detect only Nero.

When he and Nero were back down out of the attic, Dante asked, "When will your family be home?"

"About two hours," she said.

"Excellent. Enough time for a nap."

"No naps," said Nero.

Dante chuckled, and said, "Yes, dear," which earned him yet another frown from Nero.

Mrs. Olivier asked if they wanted anything to eat or drink, but Dante just wanted to go into the back yard and check if anything unusual was out there. Nero accepted a glass of water, and joined Dante a minute later.

The yard was shared with the other house in the duplex and tidy, with a set of patio furniture and a gas grill behind the Oliviers' home, and no toys visible anywhere. It ended at the back in a ditch, separating it from the next set of houses, but there was no water in the ditch now. "You seen anything yet, kid?" Dante asked.

Nero hesitated, and then said, "Is it possible for a demon to be invisible?"

"Kind of." Dante returned to the patio and sat in one of the white-painted chairs, and hooked one elbow over the back of it. "Some of them can conceal themselves within things, which makes them effectively invisible." He didn't think that was going on here, though. "They said the weirdness happens mostly at night. We'll probably have to wait until then."

Two hours. That might as well have been forever, and that was only until the rest of the family got home; it would be six hours until sundown. Dante tilted the chair back a little to get comfortable and closed his eyes, intending to have a nap regardless of what Nero thought or wanted.

Nero, however, said quietly, "I lied when I said there was nothing upstairs."

All urge to sleep vanished. "Why?" Dante asked, peering up at him.

"It's in one of the kids' bedrooms. I didn't want to say anything in front of the mom and freak her out."

"What is it?"

"I don't know. I couldn't see anything. Maybe you should go look at it before the kids come home." He paused, and shifted his weight. "I'm not even positive there's anything there. It just ... kind of seems like it."

"Trust your instincts, kid," said Dante, and he levered himself to his feet. "They keep you alive. Run interference for me, would you?"

They went into the house and, while Nero distracted Mrs. Olivier by taking her up on her offer of a snack, Dante went upstairs to survey the bedrooms himself. Behind the second door, he felt it ... exactly what Nero had doubtless sensed. That indefinable surety, that little knot in his belly.

It looked like a girl's bedroom, cluttered with stuffed animals, the bedspread bearing a fringe of lace. As Dante poked around, he was amused to find a small plush Sparda on the dresser, and a poster on the wall depicting Sparda on horseback. As Nero had said, however, there was nothing _visibly_ wrong in the room, just that feeling of mild nausea; Dante checked the closet, looked under the bed, and ran his hand across the floor and walls and found nothing.

He crept back downstairs and heard Nero still in the kitchen with Mrs. Olivier, making what sounded like cheerful small talk. Dante walked in to join them, and he gave Nero a little nod but felt there was no need to let the mother in on it yet; as Nero had said, she might flip and that was the last thing Dante needed to deal with right now.

"Nero was just telling me he was a knight on Fortuna," said Mrs. Olivier.

That was actually news to Dante. "Was he, now." He hadn't known Nero had thought of himself as being a for-real, literal knight. That was kind of hilarious, but Dante knew he couldn't laugh at it, because he had no doubt that Nero had taken it very seriously and probably still did.

"He told me they worship Sparda there," Mrs. Olivier continued. "You know, my daughter, Amanda, she is _very_ into that whole thing. If you get her started, oh ho." She laughed. "She'll talk your ear off."

That sounded like the demon-infested bedroom, but Dante pinned it down by asking if there were any other daughters in the house. There were not. It was only Amanda, the supposedly-possessed son Jeremy, and the youngest son Michael.

Mrs. Olivier had settled down somewhat, and now seemed perfectly at ease to have two armed men in her kitchen, so Dante asked if she had any beer. That earned him a disappointed frown from Nero, but also a bottle of beer from the lady of the house so Dante counted it a win.

The next hour and a half was spent discussing the children, particularly Jeremy. He was sixteen, and had undergone a total personality adjustment in the past six months or so, right around the same time the strange nocturnal sounds had begun. To Dante it sounded like nothing more or less than the normal crap all teenagers went through - he was secretive and defiant, offended when his parents took an interest in him, furious when he didn't get his way - but there _was_ that devilish aura in the one bedroom.

Nero was the one to draw all of this out of Mrs. Olivier, as Dante didn't feel any need whatsoever to chitchat with clients. Since nothing useful came out of it, he thought he would have been better off just kicking back to sleep, except that Nero was _right there,_ like he always was, being what he was and making it hard to relax.

Finally there was commotion at the front door, and Mrs. Olivier hurried to the living room greet her family. Dante and Nero followed.

Mr. Olivier had taken the three kids out somewhere, a park or something; Dante walked into the living room too late to catch it. Whatever, it didn't matter, because all three of the children were far more interested in the strange men in their house than in relating their mundane little adventure to their mother.

The mom sat them down on the couch, and introduced Dante and Nero to the kids as _investigators._ Nero went along with that and started to explain to the children that they were there to find out about the strange noises, while Dante just looked the kids over. The youngest son was awed and shy, the allegedly-possessed adolescent son huffed in an annoyed fashion, and the daughter ... the daughter.

The daughter was a demon. No doubt about it. She looked back at him, startled, and he knew that she knew he was a demon as well.

Getting into a fight with this thing with all these humans around in close quarters, even if it was weak and pathetic, was not something Dante was eager to do. Amanda put a hand onto Jeremy's arm, and he wrapped his arm protectively around her without missing a beat or even looking her way. He must have been charmed. No matter. The important thing was to get at least the parents out of the room, to clear up some space and have them out of the line of fire. He could separate Amanda from her "brothers" without a problem once there was room to fight.

Dante interrupted whatever Nero was saying. "Could we have a word with the kids?"

"You can ask them whatever you want," said Mr. Olivier.

"Alone, I mean," said Dante.

The parents were not hip to that, and asserted that their children could be interrogated only with themselves present. Dante let them make their objections but didn't listen to them; he watched Amanda, expecting her to shed her human guise any moment now. The important thing would be to keep her from shredding the humans in the room. Even the weakest demon could overpower a human if that human was taken by surprise.

"It'll be okay," said Nero.

Then, unexpectedly, the demon agreed and said, "Mom, Dad. Go ahead. It'll be fine."

"Well," said Mrs. Olivier, sounding doubtful.

"Go on," said Amanda again, and she must have had a charm on the parents as well because they dithered only a little bit more before going into the kitchen.

Amanda sent Michael and Jeremy with them, although Jeremy had to be convinced before he would leave. "They have nothing to do with this," she told Dante once they were out of the room.

"And what is _this,_ exactly?" asked Dante coldly, pulling Ivory and aiming it at her face. He didn't pull the trigger, yet; she'd actually assisted in getting the humans out of the way, which made him want to know more about what was going on here.

She stood up, and fear was written across her features but she faced him anyway. "You're not going to hurt them," she said.

_"What?"_ said Nero.

"I'll fight you," said Amanda. "I know I won't win, but I'll fight you and they'll get away from you."

"The hell are you talking about?"

Okay, _this_ was becoming interesting. "What are they?" Dante asked. "Pets?"

"They're my _family,_ you devil!"

"That," said Nero, "is not your family. Those are human beings."

"I won't let you harm them," said Amanda, and Dante could see that she was shaking but she made her words sound like a threat.

Dante lowered his gun but didn't put it away. "They're in no danger from me," he said. "Nero and I are devil hunters."

For a moment she seemed confused, and then she looked him up and down and said, slowly, "You're Dante, aren't you? Sparda's get." A queer, almost wistful look touched her eyes.

Nero snorted. "Does _everyone_ know who you are?"

The wistful look disappeared instantly. "After what went down with Mundus? Yes, everyone knows about that. That's not the kind of thing that goes unnoticed." Then Amanda frowned at Nero. "Who are you? Are you two related?"

"That's Nero," said Dante, and then, to get this back on track, "Don't worry about him. Who are _you,_ and what are you doing in this house?"

"I'm Amanda Olivier," she said. "I'm here because this is where I live. Look, there's nothing for you here. This is my family. I really think of them as my family."

"How is that possible?" asked Nero. "You're a demon."

She looked toward the kitchen; voices could be heard there, and the clink of glasses. "Can't you just go away?"

"And leave a devil in the house with a nice family?" said Dante. "With no explanation? Did someone write _idiot_ on my forehead while I was asleep?"

Amanda gazed toward the kitchen for several seconds, and when she spoke again her voice was low. "They had a daughter," she said. "She died a few weeks after she was born. I was nearby, and I felt it. I ... I took her out of the crib and buried her, and took her place. But I didn't kill her! I ... didn't even know why I did it. It just felt right, somehow. I took her form, and laid in her crib, and Mom never knew the difference."

"You expect us to believe that?" said Nero, with disgust.

"It's the truth. I'm not going to claim I acted like Sparda before I became Amanda, but I've lived here as a human for fifteen years, and there are days I forget that I'm not."

Dante kind of did believe it, but Nero wasn't quite so willing to let it go.

"What about the gate upstairs?" asked Nero.

"What gate?"

"The one in your bedroom. We know it's there."

"It's not a gate," said Dante. "Not strong enough."

"Oh," said Amanda. "I ... had to open a crack to the demon world. My power was fading. My control started to slip, and I was starting to revert." She kept looking toward the kitchen, and wouldn't look Dante or Nero in the eye. "I know you're devil hunters, but ... this is my family."

This demon definitely had the family charmed, but the charm couldn't have been a very strong one if the parents had been able to call in devil hunters without Amanda's knowledge or consent. "Do any of them know what you are?" asked Dante.

"Jeremy," said Amanda. "I don't know how he found out, but he's known since we were little kids. He helped me open the crack. There's nothing for you here, okay? Can't you ... just leave us alone?" Her voice shaded toward pleading at the end.

This _could_ all be just a big pack of lies. Dante doubted it was, but the possibility existed. It would be safer to put this devil down and let the Oliviers continue their lives unhindered by creatures from beyond the barrier. He raised Ivory again and pressed the muzzle between Amanda's eyes, and she flinched and finally looked at him.

"Why should I believe you?" he asked. One twitch of the finger would end this, for Amanda and for the Oliviers. He thought about doing that, and splattering the contents of this demon's head across the living room couch and wall, and could already imagine the smell of devil blood and devil gunpowder.

"It's the truth," said Amanda quietly. She was staring at him now, not the kitchen, and he wondered if she could read what he was thinking.

"You're telling me that you've lived purely as a human for more than a decade? That you've never given in to your instincts?" He sneered; Nero was like a blazing sun of power next to this creature. "You're not strong enough. You're barely strong enough to shapeshift."

"It's the truth!" she said again, and this time she sounded more like the indignant teenage girl she appeared to be. "I'm not saying it's easy! I'm saying I like being here, I like to look like this." Whatever she was reading in Dante's eyes, it was simple enough to read hers: fear, and an eagerness to convince. "This feels right to me. It feels right to look this way. If I gave in ... I'd lose everything."

Ahhh, there was the honesty. Dante lowered his weapon. "Show me your true face."

Another glance toward the kitchen door, and then the thing standing before him changed. Nero drew his own gun and took a step backward as the demon gained two feet of height and probably two hundred pounds of mass, its skin becoming furred and its shoulders broad and muscular. It had a face like a fanged deer with four branching horns on its brow, and its hands ended in killing talons.

"Besides," said the demon, voice baritone and resonant. "It would make Mom and Dad upset if I hurt someone."

Dante looked it over, and said, "I see."

"I don't!" said Nero, but he didn't fire and he yielded when Dante put a hand on his gun and pushed it down.

The demon's form snapped back to that of a teenaged girl. Her clothes were not even ruffled; the change had been an illusion. "I'm happy here," she said. "I have a boyfriend. I'm supposed to get my learner's permit next month. Can't you just leave us alone?"

Dante had seen enough, and he holstered Ivory. "You're going to have to close the crack upstairs," he said. "Open another one somewhere else you can access. The next devil hunter your parents call might not be me, and it's not a smart idea to have something like that leading into your home anyway."

A moment of disbelief, and then relief bloomed across Amanda's face. "Thank you!" she said.

"Don't thank me yet." Dante smiled. "I'm going to get you in big trouble with your parents."

"Why?" she asked. "How?" Dante ignored her and moved into the kitchen.

There, the four human Oliviers were talking over glasses of soda at the kitchen counter, but they stopped when Dante came in. The parents looked expectant, the younger son alarmed, and the older son irritated. Dante grabbed Jeremy by the chin, turned his head to one side and then the other to look him over, until the kid jumped up and backed out of reach with an exclamation of protest.

"Don't touch me!" he said, and he rubbed his face. Pure human, just as Dante had initially believed.

"What is it?" asked Mrs. Olivier. "What's going on?"

"Nobody is possessed," said Dante. He heard Amanda walk in behind him. "There are no devils here."

_"Possessed?"_ said Michael, for whom this was clearly out of left field.

Jeremy, however, cast an immediate and worried look to Amanda. Dante wondered what kind of conversation they would have later tonight.

"Your daughter Amanda," said Dante, "has been sneaking out at night to meet her boyfriend. I suggest you put locks on the windows and all the noises will go away."

What followed after that was entirely predictable. Mr. Olivier didn't want to believe it. Mrs. Olivier was livid. Amanda loudly denied it and was not believed, and was eventually sent to her room with a dire promise of A Talk later. It was interesting to Dante to observe how this worked out, given that Amanda had a charm on the family; it seemed to be a light one, as the humans were reacting a way that was entirely in-line with what he'd expected. That was encouraging.

Mr. Olivier showed them to the door, and he apologized for having called in professional devil hunters for what had turned out to be a teenager issue. "We were just _sure,"_ he said. "With the way Jeremy was behaving, and what we heard at night ..."

"Jeremy's being a moody brat," said Dante. "Like all kids his age. You should have seen me at sixteen."

"You didn't really talk to him."

"Didn't need to. I know a devil when I see one, and I know an ungrateful little punk when I see one."

Mr. Olivier then tried to pay them, and Dante was going to wave it away but Nero jumped in instantly to graciously accept half of the fee.

"No wonder you're always broke," said Nero, once they were in the car and pulling out of the driveway.

Dante leaned back in the seat. "Money is for humans. What does money mean?"

"Let's see. It means pizza, and electricity, and beer."

"Definitely worthy causes."

Nero turned out of the neighborhood and onto the city street, and said, "Maybe I _should_ have let you turn down the money. You're the world's worst devil hunter."

"Why? Because I didn't want to kill a teenaged girl?"

"That thing didn't look like a teenager _or_ a girl. It looked like some kind of demented dog."

Dante didn't see a need to answer that; if Nero didn't get it, then Nero wasn't going to get it. He closed his eyes, tried to ignore that a devil was sitting next to him, and said instead, "Wake me when we get home."

* * *

Early the next morning, well before dawn, Dante woke from a dream about having forgotten to do something important, to the sure sense that there was a devil outside his bedroom door.

There was no banging, no sound at all, no indication that the devil was trying to get in, but its presence was unmistakable. Dante picked up Ivory from the nightstand and rose, as soundlessly as possible.

Had this happened a month ago, he would have simply shot the door full of holes and torn up whatever was on the other side, but with every passing second he became more certain that it was Nero out there. Nevertheless, he took no chances and shoved his gun into the devil's face when he threw open the door.

It _was_ Nero, and the kid frowned at having a weapon pointed at him. "What gives?" he said.

"You tell me." Dante lowered the gun. "What are you doing up here?"

"I was just ..." The words stopped, and Nero tried again. "I was about to go for breakfast. Do you want to come along?"

Dante stared, unable to unravel all of the levels of wrongness in that question this early in the morning. The only thing he could come up with in the end was, "What?"

"Does that mean no?"

"That means ..." Holy hell. "What _time_ is it?"

"A little after five."

A little after five. Dante slammed the door in the kid's face and went back to bed. Insane. He dropped his gun back onto the nightstand and pulled a pillow over his head just in case Nero decided to knock, and was asleep again in moments.

He woke when the sun was up and it was properly morning, and remembered that crack-of-dawn interruption but wondered if he'd just dreamed it. Surely Nero hadn't _really_ come upstairs with plans to go to breakfast hours before Dante usually woke and hours before anything but the greasiest of spoons was open.

Downstairs, Nero had some music going while he did maintenance on his sword. He stood up as soon as Dante appeared at the top of the steps and said, "Ready for breakfast?"

Dante raised the pair of clean pants he had in his hand to indicate that he wanted a shower first. "Did you really come wake me up at five?" he asked.

"... I was hungry," said Nero. "I thought you might be, too."

_Pure_ insanity. There was no rational response to such an irrational thought process.

"How did you know I was there before I knocked?" asked Nero.

"You're a devil, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but ..." Nero raised his right hand, glowing bright as always. "You don't have anything like this."

"Yeah, and?"

Nero didn't reply, and so Dante just went into the bathroom to take a piss and have his shower and a shave. His mind cleared some while he was washing his hair, and something occurred to him.

So when he walked out of the bathroom, scrubbing at his wet hair with a towel, he asked, "Are you trying to tell me that you feel out devils with your _arm?"_

"Well ... yeah." Nero scratched the back of his right hand, and wouldn't look at Dante. "I didn't know there was another way. How do you do it?"

"I just know. Any devil will know another one." How did that _work,_ he wondered. Was it like a compass, where it glowed more if Nero was pointing at a devil? Dante had never seen it change shade; it was always the same blue-white it was right now. "You missed Trish. Does it not point them out all the time?"

Nero didn't answer, and it wasn't like it was important so Dante took his dirty clothes out of the bathroom and went upstairs to put on a shirt.

Then it was time for breakfast, and when Nero reached for his glove Dante got there first and put his hand down on it. This resulted in a glaring match, which resolved in fifteen seconds when Nero gave in.

"Fine," he said, and he turned down his sleeve.

At the diner, once Cindy had put in their orders she returned to the table brimming with curiosity. "So," she said, voice low. "You're a devil."

The hatred in Nero's expression was directed straight at Dante, and he moved to cover his right hand with his left. "I guess so," he said.

"I thought devils were supposed to be monsters," said Cindy. "You're kind of cute."

"Not all devils are monsters," said Dante. "Just most of them."

She looked between the two of them, and although she had that little smile that never seemed to leave her lips, she was clearly thinking something through. Dante could guess what it was, and he didn't like it.

"Don't jump to any conclusions," he said.

Nero slapped his hand down on the table, and said, "Yes, jump to conclusions. They're probably correct."

"You do kind of look like you're related," said Cindy.

This was a lost cause, so Dante just sipped his coffee until Cindy shrugged to herself and went away. Nero sprawled across his seat and gave Dante a nasty little half-smile.

"It's not a problem," said the kid. "Nobody will care, right?"

"Right," said Dante, irked now.

"Maybe we should put it on a billboard. Nobody will care, after all, so no harm done. Right? And it would be great advertising."

Dante leaned forward, definitely not pleased and making no attempt to conceal that. "It's not the same for me as it is for you."

"How do you know that?" Nero lowered his voice, but anger put force behind the words. "How the hell do you know what it's like for me? At least you were _born_ like this. I wasn't!"

Not this again. "This is not a contagious condition, kid," Dante told him. "You didn't catch it like the flu." He wasn't sure why this was annoying him so much, although it probably had to do with Nero sitting over there, being so smug and so _strong_ and so _present._ Dante wanted to choke him, and engaged in a brief fantasy of doing just that.

"The Order had some kind of ritual," said Nero. "To turn them into demons."

"Do you remember any ritual being used on you?"

"I don't know what went into it, so how should I know?"

"Believe me," said Dante, "you would have noticed it. Besides, no ritual can transform a human being into a devil. What they were doing was merging themselves with devils, and surrendering their souls in order to make room. I'm not even sure that can be done to an unwilling participant, but it's not something that would happen accidentally, or in your sleep or whatever you think."

Nero went quiet and thoughtful, and Dante wondered for the first time if he was going about this the wrong way.

Cindy brought them their food, and then crouched down next to the table. "What's it like?" she asked Nero, and when he gave her a questioning look she added, "You know. Being a devil."

"It's awful," said Nero. "I hate it."

"Really?" She glanced at Dante, and her tone was sympathetic now. "It's that bad?"

"You can't even know." Nero picked up his burger - with his left hand only - and said, "And this asshole here doesn't make it easier."

"Oh," said Cindy. "Well ... I'm sorry. Is there anything I can do?"

It was a stupid thing to say, but she meant it kindly and Dante almost said something kind back to her. Nero beat him to it and he wasn't particularly kind at all. "No," said Nero bitterly. "There's nothing you or anyone can do. Just leave me alone."

"Okay." Cindy gave him a sad little smile and skated away.

"That wasn't very nice," said Dante, but Nero just glared.

After breakfast, as they were walking home, Dante tried to remember the last time he pulled Nero into a spar, because obviously they were overdue for one. The middle of the day was hardly ideal, and he wondered if they were capable of being careful enough to do it inside the shop.

"You drive me crazy," said Nero.

"You're driving me kind of crazy," said Dante, before he could stop himself.

Nero was too worked up to do it indoors, Dante thought. Well, a sword fight in the street in broad daylight wouldn't be the strangest thing to ever hit this neighborhood.

"Grab your sword," Dante told Nero once they were home.

"Shit." Nero turned a dark scowl on him. "You think that's the answer to everything, don't you?"

Dante took Rebellion down off the wall and said, "Would you rather shoot some pool instead?"

Nero frowned very hard, almost comically so, but he nevertheless opened his sword case and brought Red Queen out of it. "It's day, you know."

"I don't care if you don't."

Apparently Nero didn't care, because he took himself outside and, after two careful feints, attacked Dante with all the power of his fury. Dante retreated a few paces, then counterattacked, and tried to gauge how angry Nero was by the strength and precision of his assault. Nero seemed ... pretty angry, and quite determined to put at least one hole in Dante's clothes, but he was more controlled this time and his strikes were exactly on-target. That made it an entertaining fight, and all residual annoyance left Dante as he and Nero fenced.

Nero, it seemed, was not entertained at all. "Stop fucking playing with me," he said, and rage laced the words.

"I don't think you really want that," said Dante, dropping the tip of his sword to block a strike aimed at his knee.

That was evidently not the right answer, because Nero proceeded to pound down on Rebellion's edge, his sword shrieking fire. Well. If that was how he wanted to play it.

Dante flipped Red Queen up and off his sword, and then, using a series of lightning strikes, drove Nero straight backward toward the wall of the building next to Devil May Cry. He gave Nero no time to do anything but dodge or try to block, with either option forcing him backward. At one point Nero tried to bring his demon hand into play, just as he had a few days ago, but this time Dante was ready for it and he twitched to one side to make the spectral fist miss his face.

Nero then tried to retreat for real, to get out of the corner he was being pushed into and put distance between them. Dante would have none of that. He caught Nero's sword with the notch in Rebellion's tip and flung it away, and then used the swing's momentum to throw his body right up against Nero and slam the kid's back into the wall behind him. Nero made one attempt to twist free, but Dante put a stop to it with his right forearm and Rebellion's hilt against the kid's throat. His left hand held the kid's demon arm by the wrist, keeping it safely to the side, and with his chest and hips pressed to Nero's, the kid was going nowhere.

It took Nero only moments to figure this out, and he actually bared his teeth as though he were a pure-blooded devil about to shapeshift. Dante forced his chin up and the back of his head against the wall to discourage any triggering in the street.

"Let me go," Nero growled.

That was when Dante realized his error. He had Nero subdued, and the kid was breathing hard, his heart thundering and his skin fragrant with exertion, his muscles tense and almost glowing with demonic power. Dante was pressed against him and could hear and smell and feel all of it.

Dante reacted immediately, but not productively; with a hard yank he pulled Nero away from the wall and threw him to the ground, kicking his legs out from under him to put him on his knees. He had Nero's right wrist in his hand already, so Dante forced that behind the kid's back, and half-knelt behind him to hold him down. Nero fought this like the devil he was, struggling against the hold with wordless and feral growls, and Dante actually caught himself raising Rebellion with the intention of striking the kid in the back of the head with the hilt.

_No._

What was he doing?

He had Nero on his knees, bent beneath him and fighting him, but under control.

He was hard as hell, with a flush of lust for the squirming devil under his hands.

_No._

He pushed Nero down and stood up, and turned away to set aside that view of the kid on his hands and knees. _No._ His hands were steady, but he could feel his blood racing, and he had to fight to keep himself from lifting his fingers to his nose to find out if the kid's scent lingered. He hoped this erection had happened _after_ he'd put Nero on the ground, but he couldn't be sure.

Dante heard Nero behind him, picking himself up and dusting himself off. He kept his back turned as Nero went to retrieve Red Queen, not trusting himself.

It had taken only seconds to lose control. Moments, really. All it had taken was an instant of Nero trapped and defenseless to wake the demon in him.

"Sorry, kid," he said. It was inadequate, but all he could offer.

"No, I'm sorry," said Nero. "I'm so out of practice. And even when I wasn't, I couldn't take you."

Nero's tone was even; either he hadn't noticed that Dante had been momentarily out of his mind, or he had and wasn't going to make anything out of it. Dante put a hand to his mouth, and yes, Nero's scent was still in the leather of his gloves. _Damn._

"Hey, I'm going to go in," said Nero, and Dante realized he'd been just standing there without saying anything, inhaling through the fingers over his mouth. "You okay?"

"Yeah, kid. I'm fine." Then Dante had to turn around, smile, and walk into the shop like nothing had happened and he didn't have a problem with ill-concealed arousal. It was incredibly difficult to pass Nero and not just slam him into another wall.

He had to figure something out. He had to come up with some kind of method for handling this.

After hanging up his sword, Dante went upstairs and shut his door, and gave in to the desire in hopes of robbing it of its power. Nero on his knees, Nero begging - for mercy, for whatever - Nero beneath him, the scent of him and feel of him and the smooth throat waiting to be licked ...

Dante unzipped his pants and leaned against the door, and his mind put Nero on his back on the desk downstairs, trapped under him and struggling but unable to get free. Oh, how the kid would kick and writhe, and Dante closed his eyes, picturing it in every detail. How Nero would smell, how his body would feel, how his skin would taste. In his imagination he thrust against Nero's thigh, and he stroked himself in time to the imagined thrusts. Even from here Dante had that sense of Nero's presence downstairs, but up close and angry the kid's devil blood had been incandescent. Dante had to hold his breath as he came, to keep from groaning aloud.

This was not sustainable, he realized once it was over and he'd stepped down from the orgasmic high. His visit to Lady had helped temporarily, but she wasn't a sex toy and he couldn't treat her like one; this was something he had to figure out without using her like a crutch.

He could kick Nero out of the place, but the logistics of that were not simple. Dante had invited him to move in - practically insisted - and Nero had nowhere to go except back to Fortuna. They both knew that this was not a permanent arrangement, what with Nero having to sleep on the couch, but it had been only a week and Nero had nowhere near the kind of funds needed to get his own place.

What did Nero think of him right now? Had that erection developed before or after slamming the kid into the wall? If before, Nero had probably felt it through his pants, and who knew what the kid thought of that. Dante certainly wasn't going to ask.

"Shit," Dante whispered to himself. He hadn't expected it to be this bad. It hadn't been remotely this bad with Trish. He'd been able to control it with Trish, and her leaving had just been a convenience, the removal of a nagging and gross little itch.

Nero was not a nagging itch. He was a metal file raked across raw nerves.

What was the answer to this? There had to be one.

There was a sound from downstairs, and Nero's presence faded. Good. Dante cleaned the ejaculate from himself with a dirty shirt, and went downstairs to kick back at his desk and give this some thought without Nero around to disturb him.

His mind nevertheless kept going back to how the kid's body had felt, pinned between Dante and the wall.

* * *

Nero didn't return until late that evening, and by then Dante had come up with a plan. He didn't like it, but he didn't have to like it. All he had to do was carry it through.

The kid had actually gone out fully armed, and was carrying his sword when he walked back in. "Hey," he said to Dante, with a little wave. His right hand was uncovered for once, fingers shining.

"Hey, kid," said Dante. How should he broach this topic? Straight to the point seemed like the best bet. "I gotta ask you something."

"Yeah?" Nero set his gun and sword down on the coffee table, and sat on the couch to clean them.

"You can't be comfortable sleeping in the office," said Dante. "How would you like to get your own apartment?"

Nero kind of half-laughed. "No money."

"I'll give it to you."

"You're broke."

"I can get some."

Now Nero looked up from his gun and peered at Dante. "Where would you get that kind of money?"

"It doesn't matter," said Dante.

"Yeah, I think it does." Nero set down his half-disassembled gun. "If you're going to rob a bank to get me out of your place, that says a lot about what you think of me."

Dante hadn't expected objections. "I'm not going to rob a bank," he said. "I can borrow it."

"You're _broke,"_ said Nero again. "Who is going to lend you money?"

"I have friends."

Nero stared at him for a moment, and then said, quietly, "I'm sorry about this afternoon."

"Don't worry about it."

"I can't seem to control it," said Nero, as though Dante had not spoken. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

"It's not a big deal," said Dante, and he realized only after he'd said it that that would make a great excuse to roll the kid out of the office. _Yeah, that's the ticket, I can't deal with your temper, you have to go._

"That's a lie, though." Nero's voice was very quiet now. "I do know what's wrong with me. It's you."

"Me." This was unexpected.

Nero was looking away now, at the front door. "You're the most powerful demon I've ever met. And you're always _here._ You're always here! And it's just ..." His fair skin was starting to shade pink.

It occurred to Dante, quite suddenly, that the reaction he was having to Nero must be reciprocal.

"I guess I've just never been around a demon ... another demon ... as long as this before," Nero was saying. "I just kind of killed them, you know? And moved on. Then I'd go ... take care of it. Later." He wiped his hand over his face, and almost looked toward Dante but turned back toward the door before he met Dante's eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

This had _not_ been a problem with Trish; it must have been related to the hybrid heritage that he and Nero shared. As far as Dante knew, full-blooded devils did not manifest their desires to kill and maim one another with any kind of involuntary sexual response.

It had just ... never crossed his mind that Nero might have the same issue Dante had, and for the same reason.

"I'm sorry," said Nero again, and the words knocked Dante out of his stunned silence.

"You don't have to be sorry," said Dante, and he wondered if he should share his little revelation with the kid, or keep it to himself. On the one hand, Nero was obviously trying to apologize for popping an erection that afternoon, one that Dante, in his preoccupation with his own, had not noticed, and it was clearly humiliating. Admitting to the other side of that story would probably make the kid feel better ... but would it also skeeze him out, knowing that a man much older than him was masturbating with him in mind? Which of these possible results was more important than the other?

"If you really want me out of here, I'll figure something out," said Nero. "You don't have to borrow money for me."

"It's not that I want you out," said Dante. What could he say? What _should_ he say? How honest should he be? "I don't know what to tell you, except ... maybe you didn't see how I kind of lost control of myself for a minute this afternoon?"

"I asked for that," said Nero.

"No, kid, you didn't. You asked for me to disarm you and maybe give you a cut to remember me by. What I did was ... uncalled-for."

Nero's skin was hotly flushed now, and Dante had to wonder if the kid was aroused this very moment, just being in the same room with him.

He wondered, what was it like? Dante had never encountered any devil that could defeat him, but it was different for Nero. Dante was a devil that Nero could not master, and not for lack of trying either.

What could that be like? Dante could not even imagine.

"No," said Nero, almost whispering now. "I asked for it. I wanted it."

That clinched it; Dante had to separate the two of them as quickly as possible. "It's not that I want you to leave," he said. "But maybe you need to. Maybe that's the only option."

Nero looked at the floor, but he nodded, acquiescing. "Right," he said.

"Tomorrow I'll scare up some cash and you can go apartment hunting." Dante gave the crotch of his pants a quick adjustment, so that when he stood up his erection would not be so apparent. It turned out to be a wasted effort; Nero wouldn't even look at him.

Fair enough. He walked toward the stairs to head up to his bedroom, the problem resolved as far as he was concerned. Not ideally, but resolved.

"Sorry, Dante," said Nero.

"It's okay, kid." Dante was sorry, too, but couldn't say it. It wasn't right, he had decided, to impose his weird sexual reactions onto Nero, not even verbally.

It took him a while to get to sleep, and he didn't stay that way very long; he roused to the knowledge that Nero was upstairs again, outside the door.

The kid said nothing and didn't knock, and as Dante lay there looking up at the ceiling in the dark he fell into a half-asleep state in which he again indulged the fantasies. It would be easy enough, after all, to go open the door and drag Nero in here, throw him to his knees and force him to suck the erection that his nearness was giving Dante. Nero would fight back, but he couldn't win. Dante gave himself slow strokes through the fabric of his boxers, too tired for an earnest masturbation but unable to rest with Nero so close by.

After what felt like forever, Dante got up and went to tell Nero to get the hell back downstairs and stop tormenting him this way.

When he opened the door, however, Nero pointed a gun at his face.

Dante's reflexes took over, and the bullets slammed into the floor as Dante turned to one side and struck Nero's hand to the other. A second later he had Nero disarmed and the kid's right arm twisted behind his back, and his face in the wall. Nero struggled, and Dante pulled him back an inch and rammed him into the wall again to quiet him.

"What was that?" he asked. He was definitely awake now. When Nero tried again to break free Dante wrenched his arm up behind his back until the kid grunted with pain. "What's this about?" The sulphur bite of gunpowder suffused the air.

"I _hate you,"_ Nero said, finally holding still.

"Yeah, that's kind of obvious."

For the second time that day, Dante was in a position of being pressed against Nero, close enough to smell him and feel his body, and to feel clearly the power of the devil that Nero was. This time, however, Dante was wearing only boxers and Nero was wearing only a pair of drawstring pants, and far too much of Nero's heated skin was touching Dante's. Perhaps this was why Dante buried his nose in Nero's hair and inhaled the warm scent before it even occurred to him to stop himself.

Nero made a strained sound and tilted back his head, and Dante felt very stupid as he realized that, in a strange way, the kid was trying to seduce him.

Dante pulled Nero away from the wall and pushed him away, but Nero immediately turned and tried to punch him. This required Dante to literally wrestle the kid to the floor to overpower him and put a stop to the attack.

"This is not a good idea," Dante said, and he was surprised by how calm he sounded given that he was painfully hard, and that against the leg holding Nero down he could feel that the kid was rock-hard as well. "You really need to not be here."

"You're driving me crazy!" Nero knocked the back of his head against the floor, just about the only motion Dante's hold on him would allow. His teeth were bared again. "I can't stand this. I can't stand this."

"Once we get you your own apartment, it won't be a problem." Dante, again, was leaning down and breathing in the smell of gunpowder and of Nero's hair before he could even think about it. The kid turned his head, and the side of his neck was an inch from Dante's lips. "Tomorrow, I'll ..." He smelled so _good,_ so warm, and Dante could almost taste the hot flush of blood beneath his skin. "I'll ..."

Then he was mouthing the side of the kid's throat, tonguing the lines of tendon and muscle beneath the flesh, and Nero moaned and twisted until Dante released him. He felt claws dig into his back in a hiss of pain, and it drew a growl from his throat and he bit down on Nero's bare shoulder.

"Dante ..." Nero breathed, and Dante silenced him by devouring his mouth.

This wasn't right, this wasn't _right,_ but Dante couldn't immediately bring himself to care. Nero was yielding, and his mouth was wet and hot, and his tongue was eager, and Dante ground his erection into the kid's hip and it made Nero groan.

Nero's claws were still sharply hooked in Dante's back, but the kid's left hand groped down his flank, and Dante had to catch his breath when those callused fingers went down the side of his hip under the hem of his boxers. He lifted an inch, and Nero's hand slid between them and wrapped his cock in a firm grip.

The pure pleasure of it made Dante's hips thrust hard, reflexively, into Nero's hand, but then his head cleared a little and he knew he had to put a stop to this. Separating his mouth from Nero's wasn't easy, but Dante managed to do it, and he turned his head to one side to keep the kid from chasing the broken kiss. Nero responded by tonguing his ear, and Dante's hips thrust again into the tight hand on his erection.

"Yes," Nero whispered.

"No," Dante whispered back. "Nero, no, _nngggh."_ He lost his words for a moment as the kid gave him a hard stroke with one hand and clawed into his back with the other; it felt so perfect, so _perfect,_ the pleasure and the pain together, administered by this devil he'd conquered.

"Let me." The plea was soft and wet, mumbled around Nero's tongue on Dante's ear and jawline. "I want to."

How many different ways was this the wrong thing to do? How many different reasons did Dante have to push Nero away, kick him out of the room and lock the door so he couldn't get back in without breaking it down? The most important was how _young_ Nero was ... but it wasn't like Nero was actually a kid. He was in his early twenties, so this was hardly cradle-robbing.

And, it felt so damned good. Nero was a devil, a strong one. He literally radiated power from his right hand, but even without that Dante would have felt it pouring out of him. Dante had never fucked a devil before, and it was almost irresistible.

Almost. He could have resisted. But when Nero whispered, "Please, Dante," against the side of his neck, Dante decided not to try.

He thrust again into Nero's hand, and the kid moaned and raked his claws down Dante's back like a line of knives. The pain shot through Dante in a sudden icy shock that gripped his spine and jerked his hips; then the cold agony flamed hot, and he growled and again bit Nero's shoulder as the pain burned down his nerves.

"Yes," Nero whispered, just before Dante recaptured his mouth.

Dante spared no thought after that for anything except Nero's hand on his cock, Nero's claws in his back, Nero's mouth pulling desperately on his tongue. The devil beneath him made no demands, submitting completely to Dante's brute lust, and Dante felt himself snarling but he was too lost to care. His spine curled when he came, arching up into the biting claws, and Nero whimpered into his mouth until Dante bit the kid's lip to quiet him.

Then he relaxed, just _feeling_ as little waves of pleasure lapped through him on the heels of his orgasm. He broke the kiss and rested his lips on the side of Nero's throat, comfortable as hell. It was minutes later, when he was about to get up and have a stretch and maybe go to sleep, when it hit him that Nero was still hard, still hotly aroused, still waiting.

_What the hell._ Dante had never done this with a devil before, but he wasn't an inconsiderate lover and he suddenly felt extremely inconsiderate. What had come over him just now, to take what he wanted and be done with it?

He shifted his weight back onto his knees so that he could pull Nero's pants and underwear down. Again, the kid's claws dug into Dante's back, but Dante had had enough of that and he reached over his shoulder to unhook them and force Nero's right arm to the floor. Then the kid moaned as Dante took his erection in hand, and he tightly gripped Dante's wrist, and Dante silenced him with an aggressive kiss.

Dante doubted it would take much to get Nero off, and he was right; Nero was so worked up, it took a scant minute of hard stroking before the kid stiffened and bucked, and came into his hand. Nero sighed into Dante's mouth, and then aloud as Dante moved his mouth down to the kid's chin and then to the pit of his throat.

This wasn't what Dante had wanted, but it had certainly quieted that itch to violence. He gave Nero's softening erection a few more gentle strokes, and then wiped his hand across the floor and settled on his hands and knees to kiss Nero's neck and under his jaw. The kid hadn't shaved since that morning, and the prickle of stubble was an interesting texture under Dante's tongue. He'd never known before how that felt from the other side, and he spent some time exploring it.

Then Nero moved, turning his head and tugging on the grip Dante had on his right arm. When Dante looked he saw that the kid's claws were coated in blood, and Nero was licking them clean.

"Fuck," Dante said.

Nero immediately stopped, but when he looked up at Dante there was a trace of blood on his lips, and Dante had to lick that away. There was nothing erotic whatsoever about the taste of his own blood, but Nero responded with an enthusiastic kiss and Dante was then inclined to accept and return it.

The pain in his back faded as the wounds healed, but this kneeling position became more uncomfortable as the post-orgasmic high retreated. Presently Dante pulled back, and looked down at Nero.

"I'm sorry," said Nero, but Dante shook his head. He didn't want to hear that kind of thing.

"We're filthy." He rose to his knees and ran his hands through his hair. "You want to shower first?"

Nero tried to sit up as well, and Dante moved to let him crawl back a bit and free his legs from Dante's. "I'm sorry," he said again, and he looked down at the blood on his claws a moment before raising his hand and again licking them clean.

Dante took Nero by the chin and forced his head up to keep him from doing that. "Don't be sorry," he said. "I'm the one who should have stopped that from happening, not you."

The kid recoiled as if slapped, and then Nero pulled his chin out of Dante's hand and looked to one side, making an effort to pull his pants back up. That had been harsh, Dante realized, so he tried to soften it by moving forward to kneel above Nero's legs and fold the kid into a gentle embrace.

"I took advantage of you," he said quietly into Nero's hair. "I shouldn't have."

"I don't know why this is happening," said Nero, just as quietly. "It just started a couple of days ago, after that thing we did for Trish. It's so stupid."

This was interesting news to Dante, but he supposed Nero _was_ more human. Not human enough, though. "It'll be easier after you move out," said Dante.

"I don't _want_ to move out," said Nero, and his lips were now against Dante's shoulder.

"Why not?"

Nero didn't even attempt to provide an explanation. Instead he began kissing Dante's shoulder, and Dante really did have to put a stop to that before things escalated again. He gave Nero's hair an affectionate stroke, and then disentangled himself and stood up.

"If you don't want the shower first," he said, "I'm going to go take one."

"... that's fine," said Nero.

Dante pulled some clean underwear out of the drawer and went downstairs to wash up. "What a disaster," he muttered to himself as he closed the bathroom door.

He did feel better. Nero was still upstairs, and Dante knew that, but the desire to commit violence on the kid was gone for the moment. It was also nice to not have to fight down arousal at the thought of it. The dynamics of the encounter, however, had not been good. Dante had no doubt that if he'd let himself go, he could have just fucked that kid into the floor and then walked away. He didn't make a habit of using people, especially not for sex, but using Nero had been perilously easy for a few minutes up there.

Nero came downstairs as Dante emerged from the bathroom. "Look," said the kid, "if you really don't want me here ..."

Dante interrupted. "It's not that I don't want you here. It's that we're sparking off one another somehow, and it's not healthy." He pointed at the ceiling. "Do you think what we did up there was smart?"

"I enjoyed it," said Nero.

"Yeah, I did, too. Probably too much."

The floor suddenly became quite interesting to Nero. "I wanted it. I would have let you do anything to me."

_And that's exactly why it can't happen again._ Dante wanted to say it. He should have said it. But the words died unspoken as he realized what Nero meant.

This was not something he could deal with at this time of the night. "Get cleaned up," he told Nero, "then get some sleep. We'll talk about this in the morning."

Nero didn't move until Dante was upstairs, and it was only as Dante was getting back into bed that he heard the shower come on downstairs.

"Fucking disaster," said Dante, as he rolled over to sleep.

* * *

Nero was on the couch with a book when Dante came downstairs, and he had the jukebox playing a slow ballad. Dante checked the spine of the book as he went by; he didn't recognize it, but the spine had a white tag.

"Get yourself a library card?" he asked

"Yeah," said Nero, not looking up from the pages. "I couldn't believe they just let you just borrow the books for free."

"Yeah, that's what I hear." Dante sat down at his desk and picked up the phone. "What are you in the mood for, kid, pizza-wise?"

"I already ate," said Nero, so Dante ordered his usual and tossed the receiver back onto the cradle. Then he sat there and looked at Nero, relaxed back on the couch with his library book, and Dante remembered the taste of the kid's mouth.

He ought to call Lady, right now. Lady always had money. He'd have to beg for it, but she'd eventually deign to give him some, and then she'd harass him for months until he scraped together enough to pay it back. It was little scene they played out every time Dante fell short on the phone bill or accidentally destroyed somebody's house, and he hardly minded the groveling required on the front end as long as he got what he needed.

Instead he stood up and walked to the couch. Nero looked up at him, questioning, but Dante said nothing. He just kicked the coffee table aside and grabbed the kid by the hair, and dragged him to the floor.

"Hey!" said Nero, twisting as he was yanked off the couch. He grabbed onto Dante's wrist, but only with his left hand. "The hell are you doing!"

Dante forced the kid onto his knees, just physically wrenching him by his hair until his body moved the way Dante wanted. Nero yelled and cried out about this in the manner of any person being practically scalped, but made no effort to defend himself; he didn't even use his claws on Dante's hand in his hair. Once Nero was kneeling, Dante tilted the kid's head up to look at him.

Nero's eyes - darker than Dante's, less otherworldly in the shade of their blue - held only fury. "What in the fuck do you think you're doing?" asked the kid.

"Putting an upstart devil in his place," said Dante.

It wasn't his _intention_ to become aroused by this, but it was perhaps inevitable. Nero on his knees, furious but submitting, hewed so closely to Dante's little fantasies about the kid that an erection was all but guaranteed. He ignored it, and forced Nero's head farther back so that those gray-blue eyes wouldn't be aimed at his groin.

Despite the rage, despite the pain Nero had to be in, the kid's lips were parted now and he was breathing hard. Dante pulled Nero's head to one side and then the other, as though inspecting him, and Nero just put up with it. He was barely even holding Dante's wrist now, barely resisting the pain being inflicted on him.

"What happened to the cocky knight who kicked me in the face?" asked Dante. "Where is he right now?"

"I'm going to kill you," said Nero, but his voice was low, and it held as much submission as it did venom.

Dante just gave Nero's head a shove and released him, throwing the kid almost all the way to the floor before Nero caught himself. "This is _not healthy,"_ said Dante. "You should _not_ be behaving this way. You ought to have tried to rip my hand off my arm, and you ought to grab your weapons right now and try to murder me."

"Like that would do any good," Nero muttered.

"Deciding not to try is a damned certain way to fail."

For a moment he thought Nero _was_ going to try. As the kid picked himself up off the floor, there was a moment when he _did_ look homicidal, enough so that Dante was positive he was going to need to defend himself. The moment passed, though, and Nero just went to retrieve his book from where it had fallen, and then he put the coffee table back where it belonged.

"This isn't you," said Dante.

"You can't tell me you didn't want it, too," said Nero. He sat where he'd been before and opened the book, leafing through it to find his place.

"We're not talking about me."

Nero's lips thinned, but he didn't reply. He ran a hand through his hair, gingerly, testing the pain.

Very dissatisfied, Dante wondered what to say to make Nero understand, or even if there was anything he _could_ say that would make Nero understand. He'd never run into a problem like this before and he had no idea where to even start.

"If you stay," he said, after a while. "I'll probably wind up chaining you to the bed and fucking you every night."

It was meant as a threat, and maybe Nero even took it as one, but the kid reacted by closing his eyes, as though imagining it for himself. "I guess you think I'm sick," said Nero. "Or sad, or pathetic, or whatever."

"I don't know what to think," said Dante.

"I guess it doesn't matter." Nero resumed reading and offered nothing more.

That hadn't gone at all how Dante had wanted, and now he had a hard-on from manhandling the kid. He pulled a magazine out of his desk and opened it, hoping to distract himself.

He should call Lady. He should get the groveling out of the way and get her over here with some cash, and then he could send the kid out this very afternoon to find an apartment. He could jack off and get this irritation out of the way, and, with Nero no longer sitting there being Nero, it wouldn't come back.

Instead, he browsed the magazine until the erection went away. The pizza arrived, and he ate his breakfast/lunch, and then returned to the magazine. Nero remained on the couch, reading his library book.

An hour later, the phone rang. Dante kicked the receiver into his hand, and said, "Devil May Cry."

A moment of silence, then a feminine voice said, hesitantly, "Devil May Cry? They told me to tell you, Devil May Cry?"

Now Dante was curious. "Yes."

"This is going to sound crazy," she said, and she laughed a little, the brittle laugh of someone who _felt_ like she was going crazy.

"Let me guess," said Dante, trying to cut this short. "You think you ran into a devil, but that's impossible so you're sure it can't have been that, except you don't have another explanation for what you saw, and now you think you're being an idiot by calling here."

"... you've heard this before."

"More times than you can count."

Nero sat up and set his book on the coffee table, watching Dante with interest. Dante pointed toward the case the kid kept his sword in, at the end of the couch.

"I don't ..." Again the caller hesitated. "How much do you charge?"

"Don't worry. Sliding scale. What's the problem?"

It was her husband. He'd come home one evening, a few days ago, and the dog had attacked him as he'd come in the door. He'd broken the animal's neck. She'd written it off as just one of those inexplicable things, but since then her husband had changed, become short-tempered, and today she'd found ...

"Something in the basement." She was almost whispering now. "I don't know what. Bones, and something else. Can you ... come look at it? Before Jake gets home tonight?"

"What's the address?"

The place was about ten miles away, on the other side of downtown, so Dante told her they'd be over in half an hour and hung up. "You're driving, kid," he said as he holstered his guns.

Nero already had his weapons secured and a glove on. "Are we actually going to _kill_ the demon this time?"

"Won't know until we get there, but signs point to yes."

Once he'd given Nero directions and was settled in the passenger seat of the car, Dante wondered if Nero would still come around and drive him places once the kid had moved out. Probably not. As weird as this whole thing with Nero had turned out, Dante had gotten very comfortable with the perks very quickly, and he was going to miss them.

The place was a row house in the center of the street, a run-down neighborhood with an abandoned grocery store on one corner, and a tavern that hadn't updated its sign for probably thirty years on the other. A small group of young men clustered on the stoop four doors down from the client's address, and Nero gave them a hard look.

"Is my car going to be safe here?" he asked.

Dante got out and pulled his sword out of the back seat. "Nothing is ever _truly_ safe, kid."

"I suppose it's lucky we didn't bring _your_ car, then."

"I suppose it is." Dante gave the young men a smile and pulled his coat out a bit so that they could see Ebony's grip, just in case Rebellion wasn't enough of a clue that he was nobody to cross. The threat was empty, of course, but they didn't have to know that.

The woman who answered Dante's knock looked older than her voice had suggested, face weathered and creased. She invited them in, and immediately started trying to excuse having called them.

"This just seems so crazy," she said. "I don't know what to think. Would you like something to drink?"

"Thank you, no," said Dante. "Where's the basement?"

She showed them the door in the kitchen, and as soon as Dante stepped down into the darkness he knew this woman wasn't crazy. "Do you smell that?" he asked Nero.

The kid found the light switch; the basement was unfinished and was being used for storage, mostly cardboard boxes but also some stacked milk crates full of paperback books. It should have been musty, but instead it smelled of acid and sulphur, and sour devil blood.

"Yeah," said Nero. "What is it?"

The client remained at the top of the stairs. "It's ... it's behind the water heater," she said.

The smell was faint until Dante got close to the water heater. The mess behind it was truly horrible, a half-melted pile of flesh with the ends of white bones poking out of it. Not human, at least. The pile was far too small, bones were far too slender, and there were claws on the visible fingers.

"What the hell is that?" asked Nero.

"Another devil," Dante said. "Never watched one fall apart after you killed it?"

"It wasn't high on my priority list, no."

Dante looked around at the walls and ceiling, but there was nothing remarkable there and no hint that a gate was present or had ever been present. "Not summoned, at least not here."

"Territory dispute?"

"Maybe." No way to know, really, and there was nothing else here that Dante needed to see. He went back upstairs. "You have a dead devil down here," he told the client. "If your husband has been replaced by a devil, they probably got into a fight and the one downstairs lost. I don't know why and I don't care. When do you expect your husband home?"

"Five-thirty," she said, and Dante glanced at the kitchen clock. Twenty minutes. "How ... how much are you going to charge for this?"

The furniture in this place was worn-down, the hallway linoleum was cracked, and there was probably a drug deal going on four doors down. "Fifty dollars," said Dante. She agreed immediately, and opened up her tin-can bank account in the kitchen to count it out for him.

He and Nero then went to sit out front on the steps, because Dante wanted to meet this demon outside the house. "Maybe you should move your car," he told Nero.

"That might be a good idea." Nero got out his keys, but said, "You're never going to stop being broke by charging people nothing."

"You think I'm going to leave a poor woman to be eaten by a devil because she's poor?"

"No. I don't know."

Nero moved his car down to the end of the block, parking it outside the vacant grocery store, and then he walked back and sat next to Dante on the steps. They waited in silence for a few minutes, and then Nero said, "If I'd come here by myself, I probably wouldn't have asked her for anything."

"I'm ninety-percent certain that we're going to kill a devil today," said Dante. "You should always ask for at least some payment when you kill a devil for someone. Even if it's ten bucks, or three bucks."

"Why?"

"I want this to be a transaction. Transactions are finite. I want them to feel like they've adequately compensated me. That way their gratitude won't trouble them later. That fifty dollars? That was a lot of money to that lady. When we kill this thing for her, she'll be able to move on to grieve that her husband is dead and whatever else she needs to do to continue with her life. It won't even occur to her to spare a second thought for either of us."

Nero thought about it a bit, and then nodded. "I get it," he said.

Dante hoped he did, because unless Nero really did go down to the docks to apply for a regular job, this was information he would need in the future.

The drug deal, or whatever it was, broke up and the young men left. A few people came and went, mostly passing through on their way to wherever they were going, and vehicular traffic was light. Then a city bus stopped next to the out-of-date tavern, and Dante stood up.

There, in the knot of people who had just gotten off the bus, was a demon.

The group broke up as the humans walked toward their homes, but the demon took only a few steps before stopping. Dante walked down the stairs to the sidewalk, and hoisted his sword up onto his shoulder. The demon looked at him for a few seconds, and then resumed its approach.

It wore a human shape, of course, that of a middle-aged man. The face had the same too-quickly-aged character stamped into it as the woman that had hired Dante, but the creature's walk was the walk of a predator.

"Who do you think you are?" asked the devil, when it was close enough for human speech. "This is my place."

"No," said Dante. "It isn't."

The devil smiled, and the smile was bristling with shark teeth. "I think you should move on. You don't really want to tangle with me."

That was a ballsy statement for a devil as weak as this one seemed to be ... unless it wasn't as weak as it seemed to be. Dante hoped it was somehow dampening itself. Only really powerful ones could even attempt that. This was becoming a little exciting. "What are you planning to do with the humans here?" he asked.

Behind him, he heard and felt Nero walk down the sidewalk as well, and then step into the street to flank the devil. The creature didn't so much as glance at the kid. "Why?" asked the demon. "Did you want to eat some yourself? They're mine, so piss off."

"No," said Dante, and he leveled his sword at the demon. "I think we're going to have to disagree on this one."

The devil tried to just grab onto the sword's blade bare-handed, which would have worked for a strong devil and ordinary steel; Dante gave Rebellion a jerk and a twist, and the edge sliced right through the devil's palms. He was being underestimated here, and he needed to set the record straight if this thing was going to give him a good fight.

It worked. The demon roared with pain, and then shapeshifted, all but exploding out of the human skin it wore as it swiped its claws at Dante. The attack was clumsy, and Dante easily leapt over it.

The thing's true form was probably fifteen feet tall, with a body like a multi-legged arthropod and a face like one of those hideous deep-ocean fish. "I can see why you wanted to look like a human," Dante told it.

"You should have left when I gave you the chance," said the creature, its voice like a thousand bees buzzing in unison. There _was_ power here, but like most devils it seemed to think that just being _big_ was its greatest asset. It was going to be a positive pleasure to put the arrogant creature down, drive it into the pavement and make it beg for its life before snuffing that life out.

"You should really get that bug infestation treated," said Nero, and he gave the demon a tap on one of its legs. "I can recommend a good exterminator."

The devil turned to peer at Nero, who gave it a cocky return smile. "Go away, pathetic human," the devil said. "The adults are talking here."

Oh shit. Dante almost laughed. The thing must have been stifling itself for a _long time_ to read Dante as weak and Nero as human.

"Then why are _your_ gums flapping?" asked Nero.

The devil roared again, with rage this time, and it lunged at Nero. Dante could have hit it in the back while it was distracted, but that was hardly sporting, and anyway letting the kid handle it seemed like a good idea at the moment. It would, if nothing else, give him a chance to see how Nero's non-devil-arm sword functioned against demons. So he moved back onto the stairs, to give himself a vantage to observe, while Nero made a few feints at the thing to feel out how the creature moved.

Then Nero struck, swiftly, and flame erupted in a cloud around him from the sword's mechanism, and the devil tried to claw at him but lost a claw against the sword's edge for its effort. Of course this only made the beast more furious, more eager to catch the human-looking thing attacking it, but despite being out of practice Nero showed no sign of having any trouble evading the devil's claws.

Dante had wanted a good fight, but he was willing to let Nero take it as long as the kid looked like he was having fun. Nero's attention was fully on the demon as he jumped and ducked and threw himself backward to sidestep the creature's attempts to harm him, his expression intent but betraying no trace of fear. The kid was going to destroy this demon, Dante knew it already. Nero was not as strong as Dante, but he was nevertheless a powerful devil, and he was about to prove it.

Nero beat the demon back a few feet, and then there was a flash of light and the kid's spectral hand slammed the demon's face into the pavement. Then, and only then, did the demon seem to realize that it was not fighting a human being; the surprise on the beast's inhuman face was visible even from a distance. It tried to break out the big guns then, tapping into its power to bellow a stream of buzzing darkness at Nero, but Nero just moved in under the attack and removed one of the thing's legs. Then he used its screams of agony and the fact that it was now off-balance to go for its throat in another cloud of flame.

The demon collapsed, shrieking, flailing, and the darkness it had produced broke apart into thousands of flies. Its convulsing body smashed into a parked car and pushed the vehicle half-onto the sidewalk, and Nero moved out of range of its thrashing to reassess. The kid wiped his mouth with his glowing hand, and then stepped back in to smash the devil's toothy face into the street again, and again and again, until the stink of its blood sharpened the air and it ceased to move.

Then Nero jumped up onto the half-smashed car to watch the demon expire; had Dante had a hand in killing it, he would have been doing the same thing. Watching it die, knowing that he had conquered it ... having a physical reaction to the sight of it. The devil's body began to fall in on itself, consumed by its own lack of connection to the human realm. In a few hours it would be nothing more than an unidentifiable lump of flesh and chitin, like the devil in the row house's basement, and in a day or so not even that much would be left. Nero hopped down from the car and crossed the street, sword over his shoulder and right arm glowing.

Dante didn't try to check, but he guessed the kid was probably _very_ aroused.

"Why did I come along?" Dante asked, walking down the steps to meet the younger man. "You could have done this yourself."

"Nobody said you had to," said Nero. "That thing wasn't worth your time anyway."

Now that the fight was over and the scary devil was disintegrating, doors up and down the street began to open and people slowly started to come out to gawk. One of the doors that opened was behind Dante, and he turned to see the woman who had called them, her disbelieving gaze flicking between the dead demon in the street and the men who had killed it.

She tried to speak, failed once, and then tried again. "That thing ... that was ... Jake?"

"No," Dante told her. "It had just taken his appearance. It probably killed him days ago."

"I'm sorry," said Nero. "I know this is hard ..."

The woman began to break down, and Dante was inclined to just leave her to it, but Nero's instincts seemed to be different. He went in to, to all appearances, give the woman a hug, but she turned away from him and shut the door in his face. Nero stared at the door for a startled moment, then looked down at his right hand, and tried to conceal it in the tail of his coat.

"It's not that," said Dante. "You're just a stranger, and she doesn't want to grieve in front of a stranger. Especially not after she watched you kill a literal hellspawn that had murdered her husband. Come on."

"There's nothing we can do?" Nero let Dante tug him along toward the car, but kept looking back toward the row house.

"We did everything we could. You killed the thing that killed her husband. Grief is for friends and family, not devil hunters."

The drive back to the office was quiet. The scent of Nero's sweat was mainly covered by the reek of devil blood, so Dante was spared the indignity of an erection, but he knew there would be a reckoning later. He should have called Lady, gotten some cash, and sent the kid out apartment hunting. He would have been alone when this call came in, and he could even have killed this devil himself.

It was dark by the time they got home. While Nero got cleaned up, Dante put on some violent music and wondered what in the hell he was going to do. When Nero walked out of the bathroom, Dante was going to have to say something to him. Something that would discourage any second attempts at seduction. The kid was probably worked up from his fight, and Dante was going to have to make it clear that nothing sexual was going to come from that.

The water stopped, and shortly thereafter Nero came out of the bathroom, hair wet and chest bare. He crossed the room, and sat down to the now-familiar task of cleaning down his sword. The weapon was even more filthy than Nero had been, and with practiced care the kid stripped down the mechanism to clean every internal part.

Dante watched for a few minutes, but caught himself watching Nero more than what Nero was doing with the sword. Where _had_ the kid come from? Somewhere, some _when,_ a devil had copulated with a human, and somehow that had wound up in Nero's family tree. Who had that been? When had it happened? How many generations removed was Nero from that event? All of those questions were unanswerable, and Dante didn't normally waste his time on unanswerable questions but ... he still sort of wanted to know.

Given the kid's coloring, it wasn't unreasonable to think the devil might have been Sparda, and Dante kind of liked that idea. The alternative left a lot of things unknowable, such as whether the devil had committed an act of love or an act of rape, and Dante preferred to think that Nero was the product of love. That _might_ mean that he and Nero were related to an uncomfortably close degree, but Dante doubted it. He was confident that his father had not slept around on his mother, which would make Sparda the kid's probably great-great-grandfather or something, at worst.

The song ended, and the jukebox clicked and hummed as it put the record back into its place.

"What are you thinking?" asked Nero.

"... why?"

"You're staring at me."

Oh. "Just wondering when you're going to next attack me and try to make me fuck you."

Nero continued work on his sword, silently, until Dante was sure the kid wasn't going to answer at all. He seemed to be almost finished with the weapon, the mechanism almost re-assembled.

Then Nero said quietly, "I was thinking about doing it after I'm done with Red Queen. I was hoping I could get you to grab me by the hair again. This morning I thought you were going to make me suck you off."

The arousal from that morning, which Dante had never dealt with, started to come back. He'd hoped that Nero wouldn't notice his erection; apparently the kid had. "I wish I could make you see how twisted all of this is," said Dante.

"You think I don't?" Nero glared at the older hunter. "I ... it just ..." He made a frustrated sound, and his eyes slid to one side. "Last night, it felt so _good._ I've never even ... I've never even been attracted to a guy before. I wasn't attracted to _you_ until the other day. Seeing what those demons had done to those people ..."

The kid slammed his hand down on the coffee table, and stood up to walk a few paces away, turning his back on Dante. "You think I don't know how fucked-up that is?" he said.

Dante started to wonder what those devils in the vacant factory _had_ done to their human victims. He hadn't gotten close enough to see. Cages meant that the humans had been alive, for at least a brief period, after the devils had taken them.

Never, in all his years as a devil hunter, had Dante gotten off on what demons did to human beings, and he doubted that Nero was so different from himself. "You're not going to start dismembering people," Dante said.

"It's power," said Nero. "Like you said. You have it." _And I don't._ He didn't add that, but the words hung out there, almost tangible.

Dante could have argued this unspoken assertion. Nero was an extremely powerful devil in his own right, and being less powerful than Dante was hardly an indictment. He wasn't sure this would be helpful, though, and Nero spoke again before Dante could work out the words he wanted to use.

"Something inside me wants the power that you have," said Nero. "Every time I think about it ..."

"You want to kill me," Dante guessed. Nero was hardly the first demon to want to cut out his heart.

Hesitantly, perhaps even unwillingly, Nero nodded. "I know I wouldn't succeed. You'd ..." He laughed a bit, with no humor. "Put me in my place, if I tried."

The words gave Dante a strong flush of lust. Yes, he would. Just as he had the night before. Nero had tried to kill him, and he'd put the kid in his place. Just as he put every devil he met in its place.

He stood up and crossed the room, and Nero didn't turn to face him until he kicked the kid in the back of the knee to drop him to the floor. Nero only went part of the way down, and then he turned and tried to punch Dante in the face; Dante just caught his fist and tripped him, and shoved Nero to his knees.

Now Dante understood what was happening here. He'd seen this scene over and over, whenever devils operated in groups, although pure-blooded devils didn't have sexual component in their little power struggles. He stroked Nero's head, and then pulled the kid's damp hair into a tight grip, twisting until Nero cried out from the pain.

As had happened that morning, Nero made no effort to resist the rough handling, submitting to the pain Dante chose to give him. There was not a shred of doubt in Dante's mind that, if he wanted, he could fuck Nero in the mouth right now, and the kid would not only put up with that, he'd do his best to make it as pleasurable for Dante as possible.

The temptation to act on that was very strong. Dante looked down at Nero, at his wide and smoky eyes, knowing that this was an _extremely deadly_ demon on his knees. The craving to demonstrate his dominance over such a lethal creature flushed through him in a hot wave.

"Dante," Nero whispered, the word thick with desire.

It was too much. Dante yanked, forced Nero up and then shoved him back onto the couch, and Dante moved atop him to hold the kid down with his own body. Nero whispered, _yes-yes-yes,_ until Dante shut him up with an invasive kiss.

The kid writhed under him, hooking a leg over the back of Dante's knee and grinding his hips against Dante's, and Dante felt claws slide into his hair. Fresh out of the shower, Nero's skin was smooth and exposed to his waist, but Dante felt very hot and very overdressed. He raised himself a little, started to unfasten his clothes, until Nero intervened to do it for him. Once his shirt was open, Nero's slipped his left hand into it, his right still buried in Dante's hair.

If Dante let it, this was going to unfold the same way it had the night before, with Nero pleasuring him and asking for nothing in return. He wanted that. He wanted to snarl and bite the kid, use him, then discard him until he was needed again. Dante did snarl, and he did separate their mouths and bite the kid on the shoulder, hard enough for Nero to gasp.

But he couldn't let that devil urge win, not a second time. Dante moved to lick Nero's ear, and then he whispered, "What do you want?"

"Fuck me," Nero moaned.

Having a very nonspecific idea of how that might work, Dante nipped Nero on the side of the neck and reached down to unzip Nero's jeans. Again, the kid did this himself as soon as he figured out what Dante wanted, and Nero ran his hand up Dante's forearm as the older man grasped his erection.

"Fuck me," whispered Nero again.

"Tell me what you want." Dante nuzzled the words against Nero's ear.

The request seemed to make Nero struggle a little, and if he was in the throes of the same demonic forces that had a tight hold on Dante, that made sense. "Tell me," whispered Dante, and he accompanied it with a slow stroke of Nero's cock.

The kid breathed hard into Dante's ear, and then laid a series of wet kisses alongside Dante's neck. "Let me suck you off," he whispered.

That ... was _not_ going to help Dante conquer this urge to just use Nero for his own pleasure, but he couldn't say no. He couldn't _make_ himself say no. He released Nero's cock and raised himself up, expecting to rearrange their positions and sit down so Nero could blow him. The moment he shifted, Nero pushed himself down the couch until his face was under Dante's hips, and in that position freed Dante's erection and took it into his mouth.

"Fuck." Dante felt Nero embrace his hips, hands up on the small of his back, the prick of claws at the base of his spine, and the kid's warm wet mouth pulling at his erection. _Don't thrust. Don't thrust._ The blow job was unpracticed, shallow, but Dante could deepen it by just ramming his cock down Nero's throat. It required all of Dante's threadbare self-control not to do that.

Dante had definitely had better blow jobs in his life, but seldom one as enthusiastic, and he was soon groaning and biting his own arm. _Don't thrust._ When Nero's left hand moved into his pants, to cup his balls and press against the space behind them, Dante _did_ involuntarily thrust a couple of inches before he could catch himself. The tip of his cock struck something inside Nero's mouth, and the kid made a strangled sound that thrilled right up Dante's spine.

"Nero," he groaned, as his groin tightened and he climbed toward his peak. "Stop ... stop, I'm ..." The kid's only response was to tighten his hold on Dante's hips, and suck harder. So, Dante had no choice but to come into Nero's mouth, stifling his cry in his forearm and fighting the overpowering need to drive into the warmth with each wave of pleasure.

Only when he was shaking, warmed through and exhausted, did Nero let him go and move away from under his hips. Dante slumped down onto the couch on his belly, aware that he was still mostly-clothed and disheveled but feeling too good to care. He could have lain there forever, or gone to sleep.

Then Nero ran a hand up the back of one of Dante's legs, and he kicked himself for _again_ taking his pleasure of the kid and then all but forgetting about him moments later.

He rolled over - forced himself to roll over - and regarded Nero. The kid was sitting on the floor now, and if his expression was any guide he hadn't expected Dante to move again for a while.

"What?" said Nero.

"You gotta stop doing that," said Dante, although that wasn't at all fair.

"Doing what?"

_Letting me just get off on you,_ was what Dante should have said, but he was too tired at the moment to explain. He took Nero's left hand and pulled the kid up onto the couch atop him, then gave Nero's groin a quick grope. Still hard. Dante thought about providing a reciprocal blow job, but he'd never given one before and he just felt too damned good to work out the logistics of how he and Nero would need to be positioned for that to happen. So he just pulled Nero to lay against him, and stroked the kid's cock until Nero was clutching him and panting into his shoulder.

He thought, lazily, that maybe he ought to figure out the mechanics of how to fuck this kid properly, so that situations like this stopped happening.

Nero came, gasping, and he began to lay wet kisses against Dante's neck as he was caressed through orgasm. Some of the lassitude had left Dante by that point, and he thought about getting up, getting some clean clothes that didn't have Nero's semen all over them, or maybe closing the office early so he could take Nero upstairs and screw him again. Obviously this shouldn't have happened at all, let alone for a second time, but it had, and now he needed to deal with that.

His stomach rumbled, and Nero gave a little laugh.

"Maybe I should order some pizza," said the kid.

"Maybe you should."

Nero wasn't particularly messy, so he only needed to tuck himself away and zip his jeans back up, then put on a shirt. Dante had to go upstairs to completely change clothes, and by the time he came back down the pizza was already ordered.

"No olives, right?" he asked.

"No olives."

Then Nero resumed reassembling his sword, and Dante went back to sit as his desk, and it was as though nothing at all had happened. Except for the part where Dante now had that relaxing, post-sex haze.

He dared to wonder, in the privacy of his mind, if it would be okay to keep the kid around. He shouldn't, and he knew he shouldn't. Just as he knew he shouldn't have given in to his lust, yesterday or today. It was simply, morally wrong. Nero didn't really know what he was doing. The kid was just being ruled by his devilish urges, the same as Dante, and that wasn't the same as _wanting_ these encounters to happen.

Dante _could_ do it, though. It was an option. He _could_ stop trying to persuade Nero to move out. He _could_ just let the kid do as he liked, and respond to any murder attempts with forceful sex.

He shouldn't. It was morally wrong. But Dante knew that just considering the possibility meant he was going to do it.

* * *

Lady stopped by the next day, early in the morning. She had a job in a city three hours away, and she was offering it to Dante. He laughed in her face.

"We should take it," said Nero.

"Listen to this kid, Dante," said Lady. "He knows the score."

Nero gave her a scowl. "I'm not a _kid,"_ he told her.

"He's not a kid," said Dante agreeably.

"We should still do it." Nero racked the pool balls, but then just chalked a cue and held it. "You wouldn't let some poor woman get eaten by a demon just because she was poor. Why would you let somebody get eaten by a demon just because they live in the next state?"

"Because _she_ is capable of doing it." Dante pointed at Lady with the magazine in his hand. "She just doesn't feel like it."

"It'll be a lot of money," said Lady. "Maybe I'm just trying to look out for you."

"Maybe you're just trying to avoid a three-hour drive for what is probably a big pile of nothing."

"I'll go," said Nero. "I'm sure I can handle whatever it is."

"Great!" Lady gave the kid a triumphant smile and a folded slip of paper. "I'll see you boys later!"

Nero opened the piece of paper once Lady was out the door, and when Dante beckoned for it, he passed it over. It was a name, a phone number with an out-of-state area code, and an address. Nothing about how much the job was worth, which meant it would be up to Nero to negotiate a fee, and nothing about what kind of trouble this person was experiencing.

"This is bullshit, you know," said Dante, giving the paper back to Nero.

"Nobody asked you to come along." Nero picked up his gun, checked if it was loaded, and tucked it into its holster.

"But you know I'm going to."

Nero gave Dante a sideways look. "I'm sure I can handle it."

"I'm sure you can, too," said Dante. "Maybe I just want to watch you kill something again."

That earned him a long, appraising look. "Fine," said Nero. "I guess I'm driving. But we're taking your car."

"Why?"

"It's a convertible."

Dante, who had parked behind some trees with a date in that convertible more than once, gave the kid a smile. This was still kind of gross, but it was more theoretically gross than viscerally; the prospect of stopping somewhere quiet and making out with Nero after this maybe-devil was dealt with gave him a strong thrill and zero nausea. He grabbed his keys out of the desk drawer and tossed them to Nero, then collected his weapons and his coat.

Before they went out the door, Dante took Nero by the throat and pushed him into the wall.

"Hey!" said Nero, but Dante cut off any further protest with a fierce kiss. Nero responded with immediate compliance, opening his mouth for Dante and relaxing against the wall, and when Dante pulled away he only wiped his mouth and said nothing.

"You're really okay with this," said Dante.

A long hesitation, until Nero said, "I know I shouldn't be."

"No, you shouldn't be."

"I'm glad you're coming along." Nero hesitated again, then turned to leave.

Nero _wasn't_ a kid, not really. He was an adult by any human standard, and devils did not reckon age or maturity. Only power, which Nero had to spare. He could decide what he wanted, and what he didn't. He was capable of telling Dante to fuck off at any point.

All of that was rationalization, Dante knew, but it was persuasive rationalization. Dante wanted to be persuaded.

And, it struck him: Nero hadn't put a glove on when Lady arrived, and he had walked out of the building without one.

Dante took a breath, and followed Nero out into the bright morning.


End file.
